


Cowardice, or The Constant Adventure Of The Soul

by verybadhedgehog



Series: Asking Too Much [4]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hungover Sex, In-universe canon-adjacent AU let's call this, M/M, Running Away, There is a plot and things happen, Wish Fulfillment, canonverse, fraught concept of loyalty, not Aftermath compliant, planetside adventures, see chapter notes for content notes, spaceports, starship maintenance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2018-08-17 02:28:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 84,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8126885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verybadhedgehog/pseuds/verybadhedgehog
Summary: General Hux and Kylo Ren are absent without leave: absconding runaways on a small ship, plotting a route through the galaxy's back ways. Kylo Ren has a new purpose in his life and a new spiritual guide. Hux, cut off from his life's work and his system of honour, must find purpose and meaning as the journey progresses.





	1. Waking Up

**Author's Note:**

> This starts out as a revised version of ch7 onwards of the abandoned work [An Unexpected Return](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5696437). Chapters 6 onwards of this fic are entirely new content.
> 
> This work (& the whole series) stick to the old headcanons (first name, family background, etc) I developed for Hux back before "Armitage Day" (TLDR: two parents married to each other but not necessarily liking each other, one elder sister, British Empire style officer class upbringing, boarding school, detached parenting, all that jazz.)
> 
> Hit me up on the [tumblr hell site](http://verybadhedgehog.tumblr.com) to yell at me about any of this.
> 
> ('Other Star Wars Characters' tagged because some *old favs* and *new favs* _might_ pop up very briefly at the end, but not enough to warrant tagging each one and making their fans wade through chapter upon chapter of kylux bickering, sobbing, frotting and fucking just in order to get a glimpse)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In transit, Hux becomes introspective.

Hux sat alone, in command of the _Duskwing_ , a ship he had never been inside before that day. He monitored the systems as best he could. He liked what they had to tell him about trajectory and propulsion system health. He was beginning to be mildly concerned about fuel. He was not at all happy about the state of the aft shields.

Every fifteen minutes, he got up to check on Ren. In between times he thought about his new status as coward traitor. Cowardice felt very different to the way he had expected. He had expected to feel sick with shame. Instead he felt slightly numb, the way one can sometimes feel after an intense battle simulation. Perhaps saving one’s own skin was pragmatism, rather than cowardice. Although it was foolish to think of it as saving his skin: Hux knew that he could not expect mercy if he gave himself up to the Resistance. That was surely the end game of Ren’s running away, what with his stated desire to ally with “her”, the Girl, the Jakku Scavenger, the Jedi. 

He felt confident, though, that the backward traitors he had vowed to extinguish would treat him cleanly, with straightforward imprisonment or execution. His fate at the hands of the First Order would be his fate at the hands of Snoke, and he actually burned with shame that it had taken him so long to face up to that fact. 

Ren’s words, “They’ll do far worse than cut the stripes off you,” had echoed in his head throughout his final duty hours. Hux had got rid of a few people on his way up, and he always thought that he had done so cleanly. One clean kill, and two who had… gone away. Out of the way and no longer worth consideration. But now he reflected: he had a fair idea of what would have happened to Major Ekvass after she had “disappeared,” and had he at any point believed that Colonel Teinar was serving out a tedious posting at a remote mining facility? Of course he fucking hadn’t. Hux hadn’t directly ordered anything messy to happen to them, and wouldn’t, all else being equal, have chosen for anything messy to happen to them. But messy things happened out of sight and off the edge of the picture. Of course they did.

And that was without giving full consideration to the level of unpleasantness that was enacted when a sadist like Snoke was pulling the strings. 

Hux chastised himself for being such a damnable fucking idiot for so long. He really had thought that his brilliance would keep him in the Supreme Leader’s good books. He really had thought that if he kept the upper hand in his rivalry with Kylo Ren, then he would be guaranteed a seat at the top table, and maybe even a fucking big seat with “Leader” on it, or even “Emperor”. 

But Kylo had explained that night, last night, in between sobs; that Snoke had ordered him to kill his own father for no other reason than to see him suffer and torture himself with guilt. If their Supreme Leader could do something so sadistic to one of them, he could do it to the other. He was toying with them and would eventually destroy them. Ren had said quite explicitly that their replacements had already been lined up.

This wasn’t saving one’s own skin. This was an attempt to leave a reasonably pristine corpse with the minimum of broken bones and missing teeth. A skin with a few small neat holes in it, no major parts missing. No mess. He thought of Kylo Ren’s skin that already bore the marks of the scourge when he had first uncovered it (and how he’d made a sharp intake of breath and thought “Bit intense, this Force training”), and he thought of Ren’s skin as he had held him and tenderly, sweetly, fucked him last night, and the newer scars he had noticed on Ren’s back and his legs. 

If he could save them, if he could get away with prison or house arrest or, he dared think, life as a fugitive with Ren, that would be a positive boon.

Yesterday he had been ready to die for the Order at Kylo Ren’s hands. But that would have been done cleanly, with the lightsaber.

He reached into his hip pocket and drew out a small knife. He always kept it sharp, and it would certainly be sharp enough for his needs. The seams holding his General’s armbands to the left sleeve of this jacket were neatly sewn and when cut in one or two places, could be unpicked. The same went for the patch bearing the First Order insignia. It was a simple task that rewarded a methodical approach. Once done with the jacket, he rose, unclipped his greatcoat, and performed the same duty on that garment. It was honour, in its own way.

He went to check on Kylo again. He found a piece of grubby paper tucked inside a pocket fold of his surcoat. He unfolded it. It was a list. From top to bottom it read:

_Hux_

_Escape_

_Contact Rey –via T.A?_

_Home?_

The first item had been checked off. Next to the check mark were scrawls of words: _dreams, yes, with me, yes._ Next to the item Escape were scrawled the words  _Laspen, Hegaria? T.A contact?_ And, next, there they were in black and white. Rey, the Jedi; and Home, which meant General Leia Organa and the Resistance. He felt uncomfortable, and anxious, but not panic or rage at what really ought to be defeat and betrayal. Perhaps he had already crossed too many lines already. 

And never mind the question of who or what the hell T.A was. _Wake up, Ren you bastard and give me a proper briefing._

Kylo kept breathing quietly, and Hux gave him a thin, sad smile. This seemingly chaotic man had made some form of rudimentary to-do list, and he was the first item on the list. He felt like he was almost about to cry again, for the second time in 24 hours. Unprecedented. Someone had wanted him enough to travel across the galaxy to get him and… Hux didn’t know what words came next. “Force him to betray his principles,” wasn’t right. “Kidnap him,” certainly wasn’t. “Rescue him”? Was that it? He had dreamt of being picked up and carried like some weak little thing, his arms locked around Ren, clinging pathetically. And he had liked it.

_What does he want from me? I must be useful to him, instrumental to him somehow. People only want me for what I can do for them after all. Everything has a use and a purpose. Maximise strength and efficiency, minimise weaknesses._

Hux hated hearing his thoughts in his father’s voice.

Maybe all Ren wanted was to be cared about. Hux didn’t have to pretend that it would be inconceivable for anyone to care about him. He did. So much it hurt.

He cursed the mistakes he’d made.

Ren’s opinions on the matter had been “I want to be with you. I see you by my side, giving me strength” and “I need you” and “I can see myself happy with you.” It seemed rather unequivocal. How typical that the one thing Ren wanted from him was the one thing he had no real experience in providing. If only he wanted a trench dug or a solar plasma gathering plant built or a starfighter squadron deployed or a new hyperdrive sourced. Or even his fucking boots polished and a shirt ironed.

Hux folded the paper back up and tucked it back into Kylo’s clothes. The list wasn't ideal from the point of view of op-sec, but it was safer on Kylo's person than anywhere else.

He stood and looked down at the quiet warm bulk of Kylo; the sleeping Knight, the latest traitor. In many ways, he realised, he barely knew him. Yet it was undeniable now that he did care about him, deeply. How the hell had this happened? If Kylo had been like this when they met, Hux thought, capable of sharing jokes and gifts and tenderness, he would have… probably been professional and restrained himself.

Hux thought of how he hadn’t exactly restrained himself, in actual fact. Since the very first shocking time he’d seen Kylo Ren without his helmet and mask, all black hair and unnerving golden brown eyes and that strange, singular face, he had been very physically attracted indeed. A striking, beautiful young man in the place of a monster, and Hux had been undone. No. Not even _that_ was the truth. He had seen the shape of Ren’s arms and chest before he had any idea what was under the visor. He had noticed them and had opinions about them.

And so at some point, he had undertaken to seduce Ren out of some mixture of spite and rivalry and desperate lust. Somewhere along the line, somewhere in that process, Hux had fallen in love: quite some time before their unexpected and surreal reunion, if he was honest with himself. He had not been professional and had not restrained himself.

Being whatever this was, _in love_ , if that’s what it was, felt different to the way he had expected, too. It tore at him, at his whole body. It was very definitely a weakness, and a dangerous one; but he couldn’t snap out of it, and far more worryingly, had no wish to snap out of it.

Hux had long ago found that weaknesses could be tolerated as long as they were kept completely hidden and did not affect anything. Data and results are all that matters. It was a clever cheat to the system, he felt, and it was the only thing that had kept him distantly sane all these years. 

The thing about this weakness, though, was that it was no longer hidden. He could not ignore the fact that he had just run away with Kylo Ren, and that his motivation for doing so was in part a romantic one.

_Sit rep: Deserter and fugitive. Still orbiting Outer Rim planet, presumably a shithole, though gazetteer claims it a “provincial trading node”. Enough fuel for 5 hours. Recommend start considering contingency plan for landing and reconnaissance. Kylo Ren vital signs and condition remain good. Continue to observe at 15 min intervals. Everything far beyond strange._

 

* * *

 

A noise behind him brought him great relief. Ren was stirring from his sleep. “Ren?”

“Hmm?”

“You OK?”

Ren slowly shambled to the cockpit. “Where are we?”

“Orbiting Laspen III.”

“Oh, good. That’s good.” 

“I was waiting for you to wake up, and getting quite concerned that we would run out of fuel waiting. Had landing planned but plans beyond that were very sparse.”

Kylo rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “How long was I out?”

“Nearly four hours. I checked on you every fifteen minutes.”

“So we made it through. Good.”

“Ren. Did you use the Force to stop a cannon pulse?”

“I tried. Seems like it worked.” Kylo was trying to appear blasé, but his little smile showed that he was rather proud of himself.

“Well. The aft shields are almost completely shagged. But we have structural integrity, thankfully.” Hux fixed his eyes on Ren. “You stopped a cannon pulse?”

“Mm. Took it out of me a bit.” There was an understatement.

“I was impressed back when I first saw you learning to stop blaster bolts. But you just stopped a pulse of fire from a Star Destroyer. I am honestly amazed.”

“I told you if we came under fire I’d give it everything I had.” He really had meant _everything_.

Hux needed to consider practicalities. “Do we have a plan of action once we get to our coordinates on Laspen III? Is this place somewhere we can rest and lie low for a bit, because we really need to rest, and we must make repairs to this ship.”

“There’s a spaceport. We can park up there without attracting too much of the wrong kind of attention. As long as you don’t start wandering around in your General’s uniform. I’ll change out of these, too.”

“You have a change of clothes? From where?”

“There were some old things left in a locker. And I’ve been stealing things and hiding them in here, whenever I was allowed out.” 

What did he mean by that childish phrase _allowed out_ , Hux wondered. Allowed out. Like someone who could barely be trusted. Like someone who did not have his freedom; someone under duress.

“Hmm. Good skills. I have plenty of kit, but it’s pretty obviously military. Stormtrooper base layers will work, I think, but I need something on top to make it look civilian. All I have in that regard is forest and desert camouflage top layers.” He sighed through his nose and shook his head. “And my sodding dress uniform still on. I cut the insignia and stripes off while you were asleep. Couldn’t bear to have them on there.”

“I’ll find something for you. I had some things picked out with you in mind.”

Ren went aft and Hux heard him enter a room or a storage area. Then he was hauling out his duffel bag and tipping it onto the crew bunk on which he’d been sleeping. Hux heard him muttering “grey one, blue one, he can have that, spare training pants,” and then came the sound of robes shucked off, layer by layer. Hux glanced back and saw Ren in trousers and undershirt, tugging a grey tunic over his head.

“How do I look?”

“You look wonderful.”

“Do I look like a normal person?”

“You look like… an unsavoury element. A dodgy piece of work. A highly attractive dodgy piece of work, though.”

“I left some things out for you. A blue shirt thing that I think will fit you. There’s a piece of cloth you can wear as a scarf. I’ve seen people wearing them.”

Ren sat down at the controls, and Hux got up to see what kind of awful scruffy stolen rags he’d be wearing.

Hux took off his dress jacket and sighed at the thought of never wearing the figure hugging silk grosgrain ever again. He knew he looked superb in uniform; the cut and lines suited him, and of course the line of the shoulders and a little subtle padding did give the impression of slightly more bulk than he possessed. He looked down at his dress breeches and sighed again, before removing his boots, stripping off his lower half and replacing his breeches with the lower half of a Stormtrooper base layer from his kit bag. Tucked into socks and boots, it wasn’t bad at all. The boots if anything were the weak point, as civilians would not keep them so shiny. The rougher look of Kylo’s boots seemed more appropriate. The blue shirt Kylo had provided fit acceptably well and was clean, but was much rougher than his uniform shirt, and scratchy around the neck and cuffs. He tried the scarf, draping it around his neck and tying a loose knot in it. He felt like an exhibit at the social history museum: he’d have a little card that read, “the ill-discipline of the criminal underclasses can be observed in their slack and untidy dress”. 

“OK, then, how about me?”

Ren gasped. “Oh, Hux,” he breathed. “You look lovely. Oh, come here.” His eyes shone. “I’ve never seen you in anything except uniform or your own naked skin. You look so good. Come here and let me mess up your hair.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes! You need to look less like you. People know what you look like. At least make your hair different.”

Hux leant down and let Kylo muss his hair up with his long bony fingers. It felt nice. He closed his eyes and leaned in to Kylo’s hands, like a pet asking for scratches and attention, like Ren himself had done back in the middle days of what he supposed he had to consider as their first relationship.

“Let me see you now.” Ren took his hands away and looked at Hux. “Oh, fuck, you look incredible.” His chest rose and fell and his lips were wet. “I mean, shit, you look hot, with your hair like that. Maybe we should leave the autopilot on and just quickly fuck, I mean we can do it right here if you like. And you don’t look like a General at all.”

Hux ignored the somewhat clumsy proposition, and kept to the actual matter at hand. “I liked looking like a General. I liked being one.”

“I know, but we can’t go around being ourselves.” Quite obviously.

“Who are we, though, if we aren’t General Hux and Kylo Ren?”

“I have some ideas for parts we can play. As for who we are, I think I know who I am, but I don’t entirely know who that is.”

Hux pursed his lips and exhaled. “You don’t reassure me.”

“I'm making it up as I go along.” 

“You really don’t reassure me.” He considered the situation for a moment. It was sufficiently surreal that it probably _would_ suit Ren’s improvisational whims. Although they really, really, needed a concrete plan. Ren was not doing so badly to have got them this far, to be scrupulously and painfully fair. “It’s alright so far. And I like you so far, whoever you think you are.” He laughed, a short, sardonic laugh. ”Whatever the hell that means, and whatever that’s worth.”

Laspen III was looming large through the front viewport, brown and green and blue. It would very soon be time to descend.


	2. At The Spaceport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minor spaceship maintenance, eating, drinking, and crying.

Ren took the _Duskwing_ through the atmosphere of Laspen III. Hux monitored coolant flow to the damaged section of the ship, and was relieved when they were through the hot portion of the descent. They coasted over scrubland and landed the _Duskwing_ at a spaceport, tucking it into a covered parking bay on the side of the port reserved for private and light commercial craft.

“We’ll need to get those shields repaired. Physical protection is compromised as well as several shield generation matrices,” said Hux as they undid their harnesses and climbed out of their seats.

“We will. First, though, I need to do the same to the _Duskwing_ as we’ve done to ourselves.” Kylo was making his way toward the back of the ship.

“And that would be?”

“Make it a little less distinctive. All this toothy stuff at the front is purely cosmetic. The Knights thought it looked good.”

“Oh, I see.” Hux intended his reply to sound plain and entirely non-judgemental, and did not succeed. It was suddenly apparent to him that of all the Knights of Ren, their Master, with his signature look styled after a large pile of laundry topped with a small dented bucket, had the most taste and class.  

“Does it look good?”

“No.”

“Oh, that’s good news. It’s all coming off.” 

Kylo opened the side hatch and jumped off while it was still lowering itself to the ground.

“Showoff,” thought Hux.

Then he took his lightsaber from his belt, and ignited it.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s all coming off,” and he sliced off a winglet, blinking and holding his head back against the spurts of molten durasteel coming off the cut. “Shit! I need my helmet for this.” He leapt back into the ship, grabbed his helmet and put it on. “That’s better,” he said, shortly followed by “I ought to turn off the voice distorter now. It’s not necessary.”

“Wait, you can turn it off?”

Kylo unclasped and removed the helmet. “Yes. There’s a toggle just here, under the rim.”

Hux blinked and laughed. “You’re not even joking. You mean to say I could have reached in under there and turned that off any time I liked, all these years?”

“I would have liked to see you try.”

“You sound like an utter idiot through that thing, and you always have. I know it’s meant to be intimidating and I’m sure to some people it is, but you just sound like a faulty droid. Sorry. I’ve said it now.”

“Fuck off, Hux.”

Hux snorted.

Ren put the helmet back on and carried on slicing off winglets from the front of the _Duskwing_. As he went, the ship took on more of the look of a stock mini transporter from about fifty years ago. He went back over each cut, leaving as neat a finish as he could. When done, he took off his helmet and gave it to Hux. “Put that back in the netting, but put a bag or something in front of it to hide it.”

“Can I see what you’ve done?”

“Of course. Step this way.” Ren extended his arm with a flourish. He looked every inch a used-starship salesman, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. “Not bad, huh? Costs credits to hire a plasma cutter, so I’ve saved us money if you want to keep any note of that.”

“Well done. Looks different already.”

Ren put his hands on his hips and admired his work. “We will hire some droids to repaint it. This shade of grey is custom, and I want to take this ship back to stock, make it as inconspicuous as I can.”

“A good strategy.”

“On the outside only – I wouldn’t give up the modifications to the sublight drive and the manoeuvring thruster array. Or the hyperdrive. Or the power plant.” 

“Oh, don’t _touch_ the manoeuvring thruster array,” said Hux. “It’s amazing to pilot this thing. So responsive. It did exactly what I wanted under my hands, and I was pushing right up against the limits, I felt.”

Ren picked up a piece of steel and carried it to a recycling pod at the side of the bay. Hux decided to help. “Shit, these are heavy. Can you not use the Force?”

“I’m taking a little time to gather and replenish my Force powers. I’m OK physically though.”

“Here is a suggestion. Why not simply cut them up into smaller bits. Then we can take several easy trips instead of a few hard ones. And I can help you more effectively. I’m not as strong as you, unfortunately, as you well know, and if I’m to be the slightest bit of assistance rather than dead weight…”

The lightsaber hummed and crackled through a piece of bodywork. “I’m doing it. Stop complaining.”

Hux picked up a now smaller piece of steel. 

“Small enough now?” Ren asked.

“Yes. Fine.” 

A thought occurred to Hux. He frowned. “When did you last eat? Please don’t say last night.”

“I found some biscuits in your room. I ate them.” Ren continued slicing up the lumps of severed body kit into smaller pieces. 

Some biscuits. That packet of biscuits Hux had had in that cupboard for who knows how long. 

_He’s done all this on a packet of rich tea biscuits. He is a maniac and he has to be stopped._

“You need to eat. Is there food on this ship?”

“Some instant noodle and instant soup. A few packets of self-forming bread. We can get food here, though, in the port.”

“Hmm. I would rather not parade myself in front of a crowd of people, not just yet.”

“There may be a vending machine.” Kylo moved towards a door at the rear of the bay and beckoned Hux to follow him. “Come and see if there’s a vending machine. Come on. Don’t be afraid, not now.”

“Aren’t you going to secure the ship?”

Kylo waved his fingers and the side hatch closed and locked.

Hux raised an eyebrow. “Oh, of course.”

A warm hand landed on Hux’s waist, and gave him a quick reassuring squeeze. He opened the door into a wide corridor walled in pale grey and dull green Duracrete and lit with a series of bare lights. At the end of the corridor was a row of vending machines and a water cooler. “See?”  said Ren. “If we’re lucky, one of these will be a hot food dispenser.”

From left to right, the array of vending machines constituted a sweatpants vending machine “four sizes to fit a wide range of bipeds”, a vending machine for power packs and converters, a snack vending machine, a hot and cold drink dispenser, and a hot food vending machine helpfully labelled _HOT FOODS_. On the front of the hot food vending machine were pictured various dishes: several variants on something brown alongside something beige; a pile of alarming orange sausages soaking in an alarming pale blue sauce; a dark greyish brown mess with flesh chunks in it that looked like something you’d shovel off a battlefield after a particularly brutal victory; and a hot meat sandwich.

“Hmm,” said Hux.

“Hot foods, delicious hot foods,” said Ren, low and rich and mildly, knowingly, sarcastic; and Hux wondered why this damned man sometimes had to say ordinary things in such a sexy voice. It wasn’t fair. He recalled thinking, infuriated, months, no, years ago, “Don’t use the sexy voice on me, Kylo Ren, it isn’t going to work. The helmet voice doesn’t work on me and neither does this.” And then he recalled some of the things Kylo had said to him and asked of him, deep, low, rich and sultry, and just how well it had worked after all. Damn it.

“Everything looks terrible,” Hux said. “But we have to eat something. Does it take credits or tokens? Do we have tokens?”

Kylo knelt down at a corner of the machine. He touched his left hand to the red enamel surface. “It takes a little of this,” and tensed his fingers; “and a little of this,” and walloped the machine with his right fist. A compartment on the side of the machine fell open, and copious coins and tokens poured out. He scooped handfuls of them into his pockets. A common criminal. “OK, let’s get some hot food. What do you want?”

“Whatever’s least bad. I think that one,” and Hux pushed a button next to a picture of some lumps in sauce alongside a heap of indeterminate carbohydrate.

Kylo picked the alarming sausages and the dark brown carnage. The machine’s display panel indicated three hot foods had been purchased, and started counting down seconds until they would be ready.

Hux was a little confused. “You didn’t put any money in – so why did you bother getting money out, if you’d cheated it anyway?”

“Might need the coins and tokens later. We could get snacks. Or pants.” 

The machine beeped, and a fiberplex box clacked down into the pick up slot and slid to the front, followed shortly by two more beeps and two more boxes.

“Let’s get a cold drink,” suggested Hux.

“Tokens are in my pocket”

“OK. Oh.” Hux reached into Ren’s trouser pocket. “Hello.”

“Oh, hello.” Ren’s voice was soft and low.  “Are you looking for tokens, or something else?” 

“Well, you insatiable creature,” said Hux, reaching further in and letting his fingers brush over where Ren was half-hard, “I suggest we feed you first, and then come back to this.” He took a few tokens, leaving Ren catching his breath, and got himself a pear juice and a water. It was always fun to tease.

Ren carried the hot foods, and Hux the drinks. “What bay are we in, 45 or 46?” asked Ren.

“Bay 46. Did you actually not know or are you testing me? What is the point in having your abilities if you can’t remember where you parked your ship?”

Ren sighed. “I knew you’d remember where we were parked”

“Couldn’t you sense the ship or something?”

“Of course I can sense the ship. It’s right through that wall, in either bay 45 or 46.”

“I will _never_ stop finding you infuriating.”

 

* * *

 

Back on the _Duskwing_ , the two settled down on the lowest of the crew bunks, using it like a sofa. Hux tore open the lid of his fiberplex box and loosened a spoon from the underside. He peeled back the inner lid of the box, and sniffed the steam that arose from the food, cautiously. “Smells alright.” He dug in to the sauce and the fluffy white couscous-like substance. “Doesn’t taste of much at all. Had a lot worse.”

Ren had already finished the alarming orange sausages in blue sauce. Hux tried the lumps, which turned out to be a thick white curd cheese that squeaked against his teeth. Ren ripped open his second box and peeled back the lid. It smelled fantastic, all pepper and meat and richness. He tried a spoonful, a chunk of red sausage and a few beans. ‘This is delicious.” A slab of flesh replete with subcutaneous fat yielded to his spoon. “This is really good. Hux, try some of this.” He offered the box to Hux, who took a careful spoonful. The fat melted against his mouth and the sauce tasted of meat and pepper and garlic and warmth.

“Mmm, that’s very nice.” He leaned against Ren and took another spoonful, this time of the dark, almost black substance that gave the dish its off-putting colour. It was soft and tasted of onion and nutmeg and a warm, full darkness, and he realised it was blood sausage, which he had had a few times before but never liked. This was good, though. Ren put the box on his knee, and they shared. 

Hux put the empty boxes, juice carton and spoons on the battered metal countertop opposite them, and sat back next to Ren, reclining against the wall of the bunk. 

“I like you,” he said. “Have I said that?”

“Yes, you did mention it.”

“I didn’t like you before. To be more accurate, I liked you a very small amount for a small amount of the time.”

“We work together acceptably well now, though, I think.”

“More than acceptably. Is that just because you’re different? I don’t know.”

Kylo stayed silent for a little while, then asked, with a little hesitation, “Dion, why did you come away with me?”

Hux was unsure once again of what to make of Ren’s use of his first name. It seemed at once oddly intimate and overly formal. “Because I thought you needed a military escort,” he said, with a twitch of a smile. Then he sighed and prepared to answer more seriously. “Because I couldn’t stay any more. I realised you were right. I didn’t want to find out the hard way what was going to happen to me. I already suspected, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was eventually going to have to die. So, to put it simply, when I thought you had come to kill me and it turned out you hadn’t, the change was set in motion. And what with everything you said about my position and your position, I came to see where I stood. The fog cleared.”

“Did you already want out?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Maybe I did. I was certainly worried about my situation, but I didn’t ever let myself think about wanting out. Not on the menu. Besides, I was too busy to sit and think.”

“This last year, for very long stretches of time I have had nothing to do but sit and think. On that bleak plateau hundreds of kilometres from anywhere, abandoned and not coming to my senses nearly quickly enough. Keeping myself there because I thought it was for my own good. Because all I knew is that it was too late.” Ren sounded weary and ashamed.

Hux was deeply troubled by each new piece of information Ren gave him about his training. It seemed to be largely physical, and now mental, torture. Training was hard, of course: work was often hard, and one had to get on with it. The use of aversive stimuli was sometimes necessary for correction and development of behaviour: he had known that for a very long time. He had put it into practice in the training, education and conditioning of his troops, following his father’s own example. But Kylo Ren’s experience appeared to be more of punishment for its own sake, and that was not training or conditioning; that was a cruel and obscene waste of time and precious resource. It was not rational nor productive, and seemed to go against everything they were supposed to stand for.

Plus, it had hurt Ren, and for that reason it was deeply and painfully wrong.

He even wondered how much actual training in the use of the Force Ren had received. Hopefully, some day soon, Kylo would be able to tell more of how he had decided to give up and leave, how he had become so much easier to get along with, so comparatively pleasant. In the story as he had told it late last night, Darth Vader and his legacy and his… ghost had had a lot to do with it, but there really had been an awful lot to take in, and matters of the Force were always somewhat impenetrable to Hux. 

“And there was us,” said Hux. “I came to trust you, with my life, with more than my life, with everything I am. My feelings were… they developed, rapidly. I would have said such a thing was impossible, but it happened.”

“Your situation was unstable. It had to change.”

“Yes, exactly that. I was ready to fall and only needed a small push. Or, if you like, it was a sudden phase transition, as occurs in the formation of durasteel.”

Ren wrinkled his brow at Hux. “That’s very poetic.”

“Metallurgy. It’s interesting.”

Ren sighed and smiled. “Metallurgy. Force preserve us. Never stop reminding me that you’re an engineer at heart.” 

“I’ll tell you something that led to this phase change. You were nice to me.”

“Is that all it takes?”

“Look, let me show you.” Hux stood up and took his dress jacket from the bunk above them. “All through the day, yesterday, I would slip my hand into my pocket, and feel that this was there.” He put his hand into his pocket, and drew out a rather small piece of toast; a piece of toast with his first name burnt onto one side and his last name on the other.

Ren’s smile was shy and soft. “Oh. Oh, Hux, you really liked it.”

“I loved it. You made this for me. Nobody makes things for me. All day long I knew that someone liked me enough to do something like this.” Hux sat back down next to Ren and continued to admire the little piece of toast that was his and his alone.

“I wanted to. I thought you would like it.”

“You maybe don’t understand. Nobody does nice things for me spontaneously, because they want to. Take my officers. They are respectful towards me. I behave in a fashion that commands respect. It is impersonal, it is predictable, and it works like a machine.” Hux continued. “And all through my life, if I have received a gift, it was because giving that gift was the expected thing to do. I don’t want to sound ungrateful to anyone; I’m just trying to explain. Very formal, impersonal gifts at set times for set reasons. When I was assigned to the _Finalizer_ , my mother gave me that ceremonial tea set because it was expected to give a gift for such an occasion.” 

Kylo flinched at the mention of the tea set that had been last seen in fragments on the floor of Hux’s quarters.

Hux continued. “We all know what’s expected of us. This,” he said, directing attention towards the piece of toast, “wasn’t expected. This meant something. Do you see?”

“Yes, I think so. That’s rather sad.”

“No, it isn’t and I’m stupid for thinking it’s important. Just officer class training, functioning as intended. It certainly doesn’t compare to your life.”

“Maybe, maybe not. When I was small, I had a great deal of love and kindness. When I look back with eyes unclouded, I see that I was treated very well. We didn’t understand each other. That was all.” It clearly pained him to remember. “But I was invited to believe that I didn’t belong there. I had it taken away from me. But you never had it.”

Hux felt a sudden pain of envy. “I’ve never talked about my upbringing before. I didn’t think it was worthy of note.” 

He then changed the subject to a more practical matter. “Where are we going to sleep? These bunks are very narrow.”

“We can sleep in the other room. I’ll show you.”

Hux was led through a door he’d noticed when he first boarded the _Duskwing_. The room was more than large enough for a couch and table, but it was actually almost completely filled by three large mattresses.  

“It’s not been used for a while, but it’s fairly clean, I hope. We’d all sleep in here.”

Compared to Hux’s usual living conditions, it was squalid. But it did not smell bad, and the blanket covering the mattress closest to the door looked clean. “This will do. We can sleep next to each other, at least. I’ll fetch my kit bag.” He did, and carefully took out his wash bag and a suitable undershirt and shorts to sleep in.

Behind the door hung a polished invisisteel mirror. “Let’s see what we look like together in these clothes.” They stood together in front of the mirror, Hux with his arm tucked around Kylo’s waist. He smiled. “Not so bad. Different, certainly.” 

Suddenly Hux was aware that something was wrong. He felt Ren’s back stiffen under his hand, and heard an awful sound, a gulped, barked cry, before his eyes really registered the picture in the mirror. Ren’s face was twisted in pain, and there was that cry, ragged and wrenching. He heard it again, then again. 

Ren was sobbing; hard, tearing, ripping sobs. He reached his hands out to the mirror to touch his own reflection. He was sobbing, shaking, howling, falling against the mirror, making more of those awful wrenching, barking cries. His head fell against itself on the mirror and he slid to the floor, howling high and loud like a terrible bird. He shook; his whole body shook, leaning against the mirror. 

Hux knelt beside him and gently laid a hand on him.

“My Dad. My Dad. I want my Dad. And he’s gone.”

“Oh, Ren.”

“I just want my Dad. And I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.” He tailed off into incoherence.

“I’m so sorry.”

“He’d know what to do. He’d be proud at last. He’d know. He’d be able to help us. I can’t. I can’t ever make it right.”

Hux hugged him tightly.

“No, no, don’t touch me. Don’t. You can’t.” 

Hux let go. 

“Don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don’t think about me, you can’t. Don’t ever. Don’t. Don’t.” Ren chanted the words as if he physically couldn’t prevent himself from repeating them over and over, or from hitting his head and his fist against the mirror, over and over and over and over.

“No need to do that. I’m here. I won’t go away.”

Kylo sobbed and screamed and clung to the mirror. “I want my Dad. I want him to come and help me. I killed him. I’m ruined. Don’t touch me. I’m lost.”

“You aren’t lost. I’m here.” Hux reached out a hand towards him. He had held this man in his arms and calmed his terrors before, and he needed to hold him now. “It’s alright, darling. It’s alright. Hush. Let me hold you. Let me look after you. Just let me. Please.”

Kylo buried himself in Hux’s shoulder. “Please help me.”

“I’ll always help you.” Hux stroked Kylo’s back and soothed him. “It was a terrible thing that happened. I understand why you did it. You had your orders. This is in part why I ran away with you. Because of who we’re running from. It isn’t right.”

Ren’s sobs calmed enough to allow him to speak in short bursts. “He loved me. The last thing he ever did was, he loved me.” He bit on his lips and wept quietly, looking away into the middle distance.  “I feared I couldn’t stay on my path. I feared it was wrong for me. But I kept trying. I had to. It was too late. I told him. I stepped away from my path but it was too late. Whatever I do now won’t bring him back. I didn’t want to do it. Please understand I didn’t want to do it.”

“I know.” 

 “How can anyone love me now? I want my mom to know I’m sorry. Maybe she knows through the Force.”

Hux felt he had to ask the question now. Get it out in the open. “Ren. Do you want to go home?”

“Yes. You don’t have to come.” Ren looked up at him, his tear-stained face a little panicked. “Not all the way. I don’t need you to betray yourself. I could leave you somewhere. I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to.”

“Shhh. We will decide what to do. All in good time. But not while you’re upset. It isn’t the best use of your mental resources.”

“Thank you,” Ren mumbled into Hux’s damp shirt. His breathing slowed and calmed and he seemed to melt a little, into Hux’s steady embrace. It was still out of Hux’s sphere of expertise, but evidence was starting to show that his comfort, awkward as it might be, had a positive effect on Kylo. This poor wild brutal creature who needed to be held and comforted and loved. Hux would do his best, and make the best of Ren.

“Hux?”

“Mm?”

“My grandfather. He wants me to go back”

Hux was bewildered by this idea, first discussed the previous night, that Ren’s grandfather, _Lord bleeding Vader, in the name of all antimatter_ , really did speak from the afterlife after all. He decided not to think too hard about it, but instead to engage with the concept on its own terms. That was sometimes the best way to gain intelligence, he found. “Do you still hear his voice or was it just the one time?”

“He appears from time to time. This morning or yesterday morning or whatever it was he told me he was proud of me for talking to you about leaving.” Ren said, calmed by Hux holding him, leaning over him and gathering him to his chest. 

 “Does he think your mother will want to see you?”

“Yes. He seems very certain.”

Hux kept feeling his way towards the appropriate vocabulary and framing for his questions. “Do you feel something… in the Force, to tell you she will?”

Ren pressed his head against Hux’s chest. “I do. But I’m so afraid. And besides, she has better men to be like sons to her. Dameron. Even your 2187. I should stay away. But I feel it, maybe. Grandfather is so certain.”

“I’m with you now, and I care about you. A great deal.”

“Thank you.”

Hux stroked Ren’s hair, feeling it soft like silk between his fingers. “You came and found me and saved me from a situation that was going to destroy me. Someone came and found me because they wanted me and cared about me, and that has never happened in all my life. I will always look after you.”

Kylo sniffed back his tears. “I looked in the mirror, and I look like him. With this shirt on, I look like him. I hadn’t seen him for ten, twelve years and I looked in the mirror and saw him, saw how he used to be when I was a little kid.” He kept trying to explain. “I told you about it last night, but I was keeping myself apart, detached from it. I told you the facts: what happened and why I was made to do it, but I wasn’t talking about how it felt. He was my Dad. I missed him so much, but I wasn’t allowed to.”

Hux nodded, as if he understood. 

“That sort of emotion, all of that, was forbidden. I had to keep myself detached. My path needed my full focus. Everything had to feed into the Dark Side of the Force. Everything. Nothing left for those feelings. Nothing left.” Kylo sobbed again. “He used to wear his blaster on his hip like this, even. He wanted to keep us safe. He wasn't very good at it, maybe. He didn’t know what I know. But he wanted to. He tried. That's what we want. What you want. Isn't it?”

“Of course. We’ll make it alright. We will.”

In reassuring Kylo, Hux was forced to consider his own beliefs about Han Solo. He was an enemy of the Empire and the First Order, a criminal, a smuggler, a rogue, an undesirable element, and yet… It was apparent that Kylo Ren seemingly without the influence of Snoke was, well, brave, funny and impossibly, naively romantic. This was the boy Han Solo had fathered and raised. So far on this journey, this adventure, Ren had been somewhat criminally roguish, too, and Hux had, while disapproving, rather liked it. The trick with the vending machine had been, he thought, a good tactical use of resources. 

“I could do with a drink after all this. Do you have any booze on board this ship?”

“I think we might have. In a locker here, we used to stash some booze and there might still be some.” Ren wiped his eyes with his sleeve and opened one locker then another. “Here it is. This must have been here years. It’ll still be drinkable.” He pulled out a bottle of a dark purplish red liquid.

“What’s that?”

“Black liquorice spirit”. 

Ren passed the bottle to Hux. The bottle had a black label with white and red writing on it, declaring it to be a distilled spirit infused with black liquorice, pepper, and an ingredient Hux could have sworn was some sort of agricultural chemical. Hux, a man used to drinking decent malt whisky and the occasional gin cocktail, was not keen. From the aesthetic of the label alone, this looked every drop like the drink of choice of a bunch of misfit youngsters with undeveloped palates. _Oh, good._

“Sorry, Hux. No fine Corellian brandy, no single malt whisky here. It’s a drink, and you wanted a drink.” His voice was still thick from crying, but he was clearly on the mend, as judged by his ability to take the piss out of Hux.

“Do you have something to drink it out of?”

Ren fetched two plex drinking glasses from the galley. Hux poured himself a generous measure. He sniffed. Like cough medicine. He drank.

“Bloody hell this is awful.” Deep personal affront was written on his face. “Like cough medicine with salt and horrendousness and metal polish in it. How dare this drink do this to me. It’s like being slapped on the face, but inside my mouth. This is awful.” He took another sip.

Kylo smiled through the flush of his tears. “You’re drinking it though.”

“What this is, basically, is you, in drink form. It’s absolutely fucking awful, and I can’t stop myself from drinking it.”

“You’ll start liking it in a minute.” Kylo took quite a large drink.

“I already have.” Hux took another swig of the appalling booze. “There’s something about it. ”

“I’m not absolutely fucking awful any more. Not absolutely.”

“No. You are showing signs of developing into either a rather nice brandy, or one of those very sweet sticky liqueurs that aunts drink”

“Hux, do you want to know something? I like those sweet drinks. Don’t tell anyone.”

Hux sniggered at the thought of the fearsome Kylo Ren sneaking a bottle of apricot liqueur into his room. “Come on, let’s take off our boots and get comfortable.” 

They leant up against the wall, side by side, legs stretched out in front of them. Ren sipped a little more of the liquorice spirit. “This takes me back. We’d all sit round and drink this, after…”

“After ‘eliminating threats’ and ‘paving the way to order’.”

“Yeah. And ‘Purifying the well of the Force’. The names we give things. They can show the truth, or they can be… it strikes me as a kind of dishonesty, now, to call things by names that aren’t quite right.”

“Different names for the same awful mess. We’re both a mess, Kylo.”

“You’re not. You’re the opposite of that.”

“I’m a mess inside. Surely you can see that, with your unique skills.”

“Yeah, of course I can. I was trying to be nice, I suppose.”

Hux laughed sharply.  “I like your legs,” he said, changing the subject again.

“My legs?”

“Yes, your legs. I like the way they look when you’re sitting down.”

“I’m sitting down now.”

“Yes, and your legs look nice now. Nice perspective. From here. I like your feet as well.”

Kylo tucked one foot over one of Hux’s feet. The physical contact felt very pleasant. 

“You feeling better?” Hux asked.

“A bit. Let’s just relax.”

“Ah, relaxation. Yet another thing in which I am an expert-level practitioner.” Neither of them, Hux would have said, knew a damn thing about relaxation. As far as he had figured out, Kylo Ren had four modes of operation: commanding (or interfering with Hux’s command), rage, sex, and sleep. He had heard of, but not witnessed, meditation in the Force, but felt this could not be reasonably classed as relaxation. The closest this man had got to relaxation in his experience was being fucked into a sweaty and exhausted heap. 

Ren giggled. “Drink your absolutely fucking awful drink and get closer to me”. He leaned in towards Hux. “Here’s to our new life.”

“To our new life.” Hux was not sure whether it was ironic or not. “We’ll try and make it work. I don’t know how, yet. We’ll work on it tomorrow. Shields and repaint and we’ll discuss our plans. You can consult with your military advisor. The poor, disgraced General.”

Ren leant further onto Hux and slid an arm around him. “I don’t care how important you’ve been or how many soldiers you have commanded, or how great and brilliant you are. I don’t care who we’ve been. I just want to be nice to you. Does that sound stupid?”

“No. Maybe yes, actually.”

“This is all new to me. I want to have everything that was forbidden to me all these years. I want love and kindness and passion and romance; I want absolutely everything. Everything. There wasn't room for it all before.” Ren reached for the bottle and topped up his drink. “I don’t know how to talk about it. I haven’t had any training: I’m making it up as I go along.”

“I’m hardly an expert. Sentiment is a weakness, and weaknesses must be eradicated. Respect and rationality should guide one’s relations with one’s fellows. That’s how I was trained.”

“Bloody hell, Hux.”

“I can’t remember anyone ever being kind to me. Not just, you know. For no reason. That’s why your little present mattered so much.”

“I do want to be kind to you. I want to treasure you. I want to keep you safe.” Ren was starting to sound a little bit affected by the drink.

Hux laughed, bitterly. “I’m not this delicate little thing that needs protecting.”

Ren looked thoughtful. “No. But you’ve been under a lot of stress and tension. Always, you know. I always thought you were only barely holding on.”

“You were right.” 

“It’s going to be different, now we’re both away from him.”

Hux clutched his drinking glass to his chest and let out a long breath. “That’s the truth. Just knowing I don’t have to go into that assembly room and speak to him, is… maybe I can breathe now.”

“We never talked about anything, you and I. Not even when we were alone together. Not until it was almost too late.”

“And he soon put a stop to that.”

They both sat in silence for a little while, staring at the wall opposite with its built in storage lockers and its exposed ducting.

Hux spoke. “I’ve done some, I suppose terrible, things too, you know.”

“You did some things, yes.”

“I don’t know if I regret them or not. They simply are what they are.”

Kylo made a small grunt of encouragement and Hux kept on talking, letting the drink unlatch his tongue. “What I mean to say, and why this is suddenly relevant: there were a lot of people on Hosnian I. A lot of _fathers_ , Ren. A lot of mothers. All gone now. Millions of them. Billions, even.”

“You weren’t looking at them when you killed them. It wasn’t personal.”

“Does that make it worse or better?”

“I don’t know.” 

Hux poured himself more drink. “Shall I tell you why I did it? It isn’t a particularly good reason, but it’s probably the most honest thing I’ve ever said.”

“Tell me. I shan’t know if it’s honest until you say it.”

“I did it because I thought I needed to do it for my career. There it is. Simple as that. He looked at me and said ‘our strategy must now change’. I knew what he wanted. Look, you probably remember. We hadn’t even done a test firing but systems were all individually tested and we were ready enough if he wanted us to be ready. Just barely ready enough. I had it all coordinated like that. Just in case.”

“I remember. I was surprised, actually. I always thought he cared about your plans and scheduling.”

 “Well. Ha – so there it was. I did it so that I would look good in front of the Supreme Leader and you would look bad.”

“And then off you went to talk to your engineers. I bet they were pleased to have their deadline changed.”

“There were some sharp intakes of breath. Ha. As if you’ve ever cared two tiny shits about how my engineering meetings went.”

“I care now.” Ren put his drink down, then spoke again. “Hux. You left the room to give your people their orders. That left me there, with him. That’s when he gave me my order, to kill my father.”

“Oh, Ren. I didn’t know.”

“I exercised some self control. You’d have said I was terribly brave about it.”

“You were.”

Hux rolled his drinking glass around in his palm. “Of course the weapon was always meant for use. Quite possible that the test firing itself would have struck such fear into the Republic that we could have easily negotiated them almost out of existence. But; their choice to keep their fleet all too close. Many birds, one stone. Great naivety on their part.”

“They were foolish.”

“Militarily, it was a tremendous blow. I still don’t know how I feel about the collateral damage. Part of me thinks it isn’t important. But. I see how you mourn. The depth of your feeling. It troubles me.”

“It isn’t easy.”

“It troubles me greatly, to say it again; that in the final analysis I did it, actually put the process in motion, so that I would look good and you would look bad. It happened when it did because of petty point-scoring. Between us. For Snoke’s approval.” Hux scratched his fingernails against the rough twill of the mattress cover. “Not good, is it.”

“Not good, but neither is it surprising.”

“Not surprising because that’s the sort of awful social climber I am?”

“A bit. But mainly because that’s how he manipulated you.”

“I suppose”

“Fuck’s sake, Hux, you’re supposed to be the strategist, it should be obvious to you how you were played.”

“Still did it though. Wasn’t just following orders.”

“It’s not as simple as following orders. I don’t think I expect you to understand that. You are a professional soldier. Your experience of life is limited.” 

Surely it was just like this maddening man to in one breath minimise Hux’s involvement in what would surely be considered a war atrocity; and in the next, insult him. Hux could barely stand it. “I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’ve just decided.” 

They stared at the wall for a while longer. 

Ren shuffled his foot against Hux’s foot, sending a hot shiver up his leg.

It was arousing, but not enough. Not in the right way. For sure, they could fuck, but it wouldn’t seem right. Better to just lie here, maybe drunk, maybe turned on, maybe just holed up in the arse end of the galaxy with nothing. Hux lay on Ren’s shoulder and tried not to think. Fucking was what they had usually done to avoid thinking. 

He kissed loosely at Ren’s neck.

“We could, but I’m not sure if I even want to.”

“So we’ll sleep.”

“Can I just lie here with you, then?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Hux rolled up one of the blankets to make a sort of pillow. He looked at the sleep clothes he’d laid out for himself, and decided to change into them. Kylo wriggled out of his own things and settled down under another blanket.

This was their bunk now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some heavy emotions as Ren breaks down and regrets the death of his father.  
> Alcohol consumption, though not to excess.


	3. A little bit of business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dirty hung over sex, a glorious sunrise, a business deal

Hux sat up in the early morning twilight, face lit by a pale yellowish glow from his datapad. From time to time he took a minute to watch Ren sleeping, sprawled, heavy, drooling on his makeshift pillow. He scrolled up on his pad, and checked his work approvingly.

He had been making plans both immediate and long term. His head felt a little imperfect, but he had woken and found he preferred work to either sleep or a vain attempt at it.

He tapped to enter more data. Tap tap tap; then the datapad left his hands, abruptly and with force, knocking into a storage locker and clattering to the floor.

“Careful! What the hell are you doing?”

“What the hell are you doing? Using your datapad? Are you stupid? You want to lead them straight to us?”

Hux leant across and picked up the datapad. Not broken, luckily for him and even luckier for _this_ over-reacting fucker. “You complete idiot, you cannot possibly, possibly, think I am as stupid as that. This,” he said, waving it, “is my _personal_ datapad. Not my work datapad. I have two.”

“You have two? How was I supposed to know you have two?”

“You know now,” he said. “And good morning to you.”

Kylo turned over onto his back and stretched, arching his back.  He had, of course, woken up hard, as was very apparent beneath the thin blanket that covered him. He arched his back further. The display was deliberate.

Hux put the datapad back down and crawled back over to Kylo. “I have a question. Who does this ship belong to? It’s not directly connected with the First Order, is it? I don't recall seeing it on any schedule of the Fleet.”

“No, why would you think that? It belongs to me.”

Hux needed more clarification. “Does it belong to you as the master of the Knights of Ren, or you personally?”

“Me personally. This ship belonged to me before I joined the Knights.”   

“Hmm, that’s interesting and welcome news.”

“Why?”

Hux leant over him. “Because I have never had you on anything that isn’t First Order property.”

Kylo pulled him down and tugged the blanket aside. “Very well observed,” he said in between rough, messy kisses. He rolled his hips up against Hux.

“This ship being yours personally makes it even better.” Hux was suddenly as desperate as he had ever been in their odd dysfunctional encounters aboard the _Finalizer_. He grabbed a handful of dark silky hair and twisted his wrist, pulling Ren’s head back, opening up a wide inviting expanse of neck to bite and lick.

Ren’s breaths were fast and deep. “I love your fierce little mouth. Bite me like you used to, I want to feel it.” 

Hux bit him on the neck and sucked his sweat damp flesh into his mouth. It would without doubt leave a deep purple bruise. More bites followed, down the neck and onto his shoulder.

“Ahh, that hurts, it’s good.”

Hux ran his hands over Kylo’s lovely chest, found a nipple, teased it for a few seconds and then pinched it between his thumb and the side of his forefinger. Kylo half grunted, half moaned. Hux did it again.

“Hux. I’m yours now, you know. You can do things to me.”

Hux still felt intoxicated, though differently to the way drink blurred him and loosened him. It felt like he was on the edge of something. “I want to do things to you, but I can’t decide what.”

Kylo’s hands were at his waist, easing down his shorts.

Hux rutted down against him, and shifted so that his dick was rubbing against Ren’s firm abdomen. There was the scar that he’d asked permission to _even touch at all_. And now he was rubbing himself off against it, breathing hard, feeling new sweat wash out onto the oily sweat of the morning after.

“Oh, yes. Please. Just… fucking… all over me, want your cock all over me.” Kylo’s face flushed with arousal and something that approximated shame.

 _That_ was what he wanted to do. That.

He bit his lip and whined. The texture of the scar felt so good against the sensitive underside of his cock. Delicious, electric and so fucking _filthy_. His hands moved to Ren’s chest, kneading his pectorals and thumbing at his nipples. _Fuck_. He fully straddled Ren’s torso and moved up, leaning forward to slide his cock onto his firm cushiony muscles.

Ren raised himself up on his elbows, offering his chest, giving Hux more friction. So dirty, so desperate.

“Are you always like this the morning after you drink that stuff?” 

Kylo dipped his head, hiding behind his hair. “Don’t know. Maybe.  Slightly.”

“You didn’t used to…with…?”

“No! They’re my brothers and sisters. You’re you.”

“Remember when I thought this sort of thing was off limits to you?”

He tipped his head back again. “How wrong you were.” He gasped and panted as Hux brought the head of his dick closer to his nipple and then, _fuck_ , brushed over it. “Ah! Oh, _Hux_. That.”

Hux rubbed himself on Ren’s nipple; unable to stop himself making little grunting gasps more at the sight of what he was doing, at the very concept of it, than at the sensation itself. Ren bit his lip and whined.

He offered two fingers to Ren’s mouth, and they were taken gladly, eagerly, with a wet and hungry suck.

He wanted to come on Ren’s chest. And across his neck. And on his face. And he wanted Ren to suck him. Or, to be more accurate, he wanted to straddle his face and fuck him between his beautiful lips. The treatment his fingers were getting helped his desires to coalesce. He pushed Ren back onto his back, and brought his knees up over Ren’s shoulders. Ren looked up at him, eyes dark and heavy. 

“Put it in my mouth,” Ren said, with simple uncomplicated need. So he slid the wet tip of it over Ren’s lips, feeling Ren’s hot panting breath against him, before his mouth opened right up, took him in and sucked him down.

Once in position, Hux realised he could see through the ship’s little side viewport, if he held himself up. He leant forward and gripped onto the viewport’s seam-welded sill to give himself purchase. The sky was becoming lighter, and the structures of the port were coming into shape.

Ren relaxed his mouth and let his tongue gently lap against the underside of Hux’s cock. Under his tucked-back thigh, Hux felt Ren’s shoulder working. He was stroking himself, quite vigorously. _Good_. 

Ren started to grunt and moan around Hux’s dick, which brought Hux closer and closer to the edge. His balls tightened and he was closer yet. He pulled out and jerked himself a few times, making tense, tight grunts. Ren turned his face to the side, and Hux painted his scarred cheek with glistening white come that beaded and dripped on his skin.

Hux sat back slightly, panting, loose-bodied.  Kylo’s face twisted up in the way Hux knew well – and then, he felt a warm wet spatter across his back. He trailed his fingers across Kylo’s face, through the spreading wetness, and into Kylo’s mouth, where they were loosely sucked.

“We’re filthy. Fuck, that was good. But we’re filthy.”

“The shower does work, if you want it. It’s only a sonic, but the sink has running water.”

Hux managed to haul himself upright. “Come on. We both need to wash.” He fumbled for his wash bag and headed, unsteadily, to the ship’s fresher.

 

* * *

 

“What were you doing on your datapad anyway,” Ren asked as Hux dressed.

“I’ve been planning and considering logistics.”

“Ok, good.”

“I’ve also been outlining a possible way to restore the Empire and bring order to the Galaxy, properly this time.”

“Really?” 

Hux wasn’t sure how to take Ren’s tone of voice.

“Given that we must now consider the First Order as it stands to be a lost cause, at least until we can dethrone the Supreme Leader, I thought it would be appropriate for me to consider alternative options. I’m still young, and if I play this right and create the right opportunities, I could still be leader by the time I’m, say fifty-five or sixty.”

Kylo stared at Hux, and narrowed his eyes slightly. “Hmm. I suppose that’s only to be expected.”

“What?”

“A discussion for another time. Tell me your plans for today.”

“So this is today: get components, book repaint with maintenance droids – they have those here, right? Install components, get repaint job done, get fuel, get out of here: seems straightforward to me.”

“You seem confident, considering you didn’t want to leave the parking bay yesterday.”

“I shall ignore that.”

“You must have done this all in a secret ‘undercover op in a Neutral Zone spaceport’ simulation.”

“I shall ignore that.”

The sky was growing lighter through the viewport, taking on a turquoise colour, and the clouds were starting to get an orange glow. “Here’s an immediate objective for us: recce the port. We might catch the sunrise. Get your boots on and we shall sort out weapons.”

Hux fiddled with his holster, adjusted the waistband of his pants, mimed drawing his blaster, and frowned. “I wish I could wear this under the pants, but it won’t fit.”

“Why not keep it over the pants? You don’t need a concealed weapon. This is the Neutral Zone.”

“Yes, I bloody well do. I don’t take advice from you.” If only the bastard could have come back less patronising. Hux would have accepted a tiny bit less romance in exchange for a little less ill-informed untrained arrogance. He pulled at the hem of his shirt. “If this shirt was longer, like yours… Oh, okay, let’s accept that I can’t hide the blaster. Can you see the knife from there?”

“No. So there you are, problem solved. I can’t see the blade you keep in your boot, either.”

“Good. One thing you must promise me. You cannot use the lightsaber in the open in public.”

“Hux, I’m not stupid.”

“But you will be tempted. Someone will look at you in the wrong way, and you’ll be tempted. Fists and boots, blasters when necessary.”

“And the Force.”

“Keep it subtle, though. Don’t fucking levitate anyone.” Hux waved a hand dismissively. “Just don’t cause a scene.”

Ren stared open-mouthed at Hux for a couple of seconds. “What about me makes you think I am a complete imbecile? Is it the hair? Is this, somehow, idiot’s hair?” He held some of it above his head. “Should I find a barber in this port, get myself a nice neat haircut?”

“Oh, for… Hmm, I should shave.”

“No, you most definitely should not.”

“You are very keen on getting me to grow a beard. Is it a ‘thing’ for you? It is, isn’t it.”

“It might be, but the main factor in favour is that you as General Hux, you do not wear a beard. You as fugitive not wanting to be recognised as General Hux…”

“Fine, fine, I know damn well you’re right. I won’t shave. I hope it bloody well scratches when I kiss you.” Hux rubbed his cheek and frowned. 

“Already does, a bit.” Kylo slipped a jacket over his shirt, and checked the pockets. “Kenobi wore a beard,” he said. “He was very handsome.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “When I learned about the Clone Wars, the focus was on strategy and operations, not on historical facial hair. Now please can we stick to the topic at hand.”

“Do please continue.”

“Now, listen. You have an alarming habit of using my name, which cannot continue when we are outdoors. We both need aliases. I shall be…” he paused a moment for thought, and remembered a favourite weapons technician, “Mullin. Easy to remember, I hope.”

“Mullin. That'll do. Me, Artan Czeram,” Kylo said, without any pause for thought.

“You came up with that quickly.”

“There are operational reasons for it.” 

“Such as?”

“You’ll see.” 

 

* * *

 

Ren stopped at one of the vending machines and got two protein bars. How very thoughtful of him.

They strolled through the spaceport as if they belonged there. Simply two men on some sort of business. Hux realised that Ren had hung back for a few paces and then caught up with him.

“I like the walk you’re doing,” he said. “Very casual.”

“Thank you. I observe and copy.”

A freighter descended, its form becoming gradually apparent against the dawn sky. Quadjumpers moved cargo containers from place to place in the cargo yard. The heavy side of the port either did not sleep, or woke early. 

“I thought you were hard-wired to do the military thing.”

“No, that’s not the case. I consider appearances to be extremely important. I maintain an appropriate appearance. I am not currently on the bridge of my beloved Star Destroyer,” and Hux knew exactly to the minute how far into his shift he should be, “so there is no need for what you call ‘the military thing’ in this situation.”

“You’re very adaptable. I’m genuinely impressed.”

“I’ve been in the army since I was a kid. I was born and raised an Imperial military brat for crying out loud and you’re impressed that I’m adaptable, Ren? I often wonder what the hell you think the military is.” 

The port was situated next to a small incline, and they walked uphill to an open area with a few scraggly bushes punctuating gritty soil. The sun breached the horizon and a stream of golden light illuminated them, bathing them in gold, gilding their features, turning Hux’s hair into a bright, burning, orange flame. Hux closed his eyes and felt the first warmth of the sun hit him. 

“Oh,” Ren said, quietly, almost to himself. “Oh, I…” He breathed deeply and started again. “The light in your hair. It’s like fire. And your eyelashes are gold and you are all gold and fire, and you shine. Beautiful. Truly beautiful.” 

Hux shielded his eyes, blinked, and was about to say “Really?” when he was kissed, softly, gently, reverently.

“Your lips are perfection.”

Hux rolled his eyes. Nonetheless, Kylo took Hux’s face in his hands, rested his forehead against Hux’s brow, and so whispered to him, “You were my flame in the darkness.” Had this over-romantic poet’s soul always been hidden behind the mask of the Knight? Where was all this nonsense coming from? Soft and low, Kylo continued. “You were always there, in my mind. I tried to forget you. I could not.”

To know that he had somehow been a help to Kylo Ren during his doomed period of training filled Hux with pride, even if he did find the wording of it all rather excessive.

Hux blinked again. He suddenly thought of the last sunrise he’d seen from Starkiller. He’d watched the sun breach the horizon and he’d said to it, he’d actually said to a sodding star, “you’ve got no idea what’s coming, have you.” Ha. Too bloody true.

“There’s something I want to see,” Ren said. “Can I look inside your head? I feel I should ask first.”

Well. Best put those thoughts away first. “OK.” 

Hux felt a light pressure wave pass through his head, and then a presence. 

 _Hello, it’s me_. 

_I was hardly expecting anyone else._

_You have so much shut away. Behind doors, in boxes._

_That’s how I like it. Don’t go digging about. Don’t open them._

_But see, this one’s already open. Spilling out everywhere. I think it may have been my doing._

_Yes. With your visions and your recklessness._

_Let me try something, I want to see from this side._ Kylo leaned in and kissed Hux again, softly and slowly, lacing his fingers in Hux’s hair. _Yes, I do see now._

_Don’t do that when you’re in my head, it’s embarrassing._

“I’m out now. It was pleasing.”

“If we’re quite finished massaging your monstrous ego by demonstrating that I like to be kissed, we do need get on and get things done.”

They started back down the hill to the port, passing only a few small groups of life-forms, all going about their own business and not seeming to pay much attention to the two tall strangers. Hux was still on his guard. There would surely by now be a bulletin out about his disappearance; and a price on his head. 

“What shall we call the ship?” Ren asked. “We need to rename it and I want to name it after you in some way. Or after us.” The concept of “us” was new and strange. Ungainly, like a new born animal. 

“What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. _Firebird_. Or _Legacy_. Or _Morning Flame_. Something with flame or fire, for you.” Hux snorted at these wonderfully dramatic, overstated unsuitable names. Ren carried on. “ _Firecrest_ , maybe.”

“Because of my hair? Is that really necessary?”

“It’s a variety of bird. A small bird. It suits a small ship. Come on, it’s not bad.”

“I suppose it does work. Hmm. _Firecrest_. I’ll let you have that.” 

“How uncommonly gracious of you.” Ren pointed at the container port. “You know what’s funny? The inside of your head is much like that. Everything in boxes.” 

“Thanks.”

“I have things locked away. I didn’t expect you to have so much locked away too.” 

“Really?” All that use of the Force, all that telepathy, and he didn’t expect that. 

Containers and freighters on the heavy side of the port that had been dull grey blocks in twilight were now vivid primary colours. They presented an attractive prospect.

“Let’s go over to the heavy side. I have an idea.”

“What kind of idea?” Hux asked, feeling he would probably always be suspicious of this man’s ideas.

“We can get some shield generator components and maybe some ceramics, and if we’re lucky we can make a few credits at the same time.”

“This is going to be fraud of some description.”

“I only plan to do a little deal, if possible, for a small crate or two of components. It will be relatively above board.”

“I don’t like ‘relatively’. But we need to acquire resources. This is the reality in the field.” He glanced at his companion and sighed. “You take the lead. I will play along.”

“Look, see those containers down there? Sabmert. They’re branded Sabmert.”

Hux thought for a second. Sabmert was a very large company with several subsidiaries. “Sabmert Particle and Field, used to be Repulsion Fields AQA? Good spot. Fine quality, and hard for us to get hold of.” “Us” being the First Order, which wasn’t “us” at all, any more. More adjustments to make. 

They wandered unchallenged into the heavy side port, and approached the grouping of Sabmert containers. A trader stood at a rolling mini desk, checking paperwork and looking at a crate that had been unloaded from one of the containers. The crate was indeed marked “Ray Deflector Generator Arrays, size C Superior.” A very good spot indeed. Probably the Force.

“Good morning, sir!” Ren hailed him, warmly.

The trader raised his head. He was a human man of middle age; his face was round and light brown and his forehead thickly furrowed. “Gentlemen,” he nodded, appraising them.

Kylo made a small gesture with one hand as he spoke. “We are buyer representatives of an trading company operating across the Galaxy doing business with all allegiances, and we are interested in shield generator components.”

The trader seemed to accept his word without question. “All allegiances, you say? There are some who will pay well for cross-zone trades.”

“Exactly, and we have such a client, and there is a possibility of… if not a formal contract to supply, an ongoing business relationship.”

The trader’s eyes creased and his mouth made a greedy smile.

“Likhaan!” he called over his shoulder. “Likhaan! Come here! Some young lads here with an opportunity. A business opportunity.”

A creature, presumably Likhaan, approached from behind another container. He was… Hux wasn’t sure what species. Humanoid, semi-saurian, about 1.60m in height, pale in colour with scaly skin. Large plate-like scales covered his head from the forehead back to the neck and possibly further. He nodded at Hux and at Ren. “Pleased to meet you gentlemen. What is it that you propose?”

Hux could feel Likhaan sizing them up. The first trader’s gaze on them had not felt so aggressive.

Ren continued, affably, “Our client would like to explore new sources of shielding technology, and would be interested in forming a business relationship.”

“Sounds interesting so far.”

“They would, of course, like the opportunity to inspect a sample of merchandise.”

Likhaan hissed in disgust and turned away. The first trader shook his head. “Ah no, we know this one. You take the sample on the promise of a future deal and we never hear from you again and we’re down a few thousand credits. You must think we fell off a tarsun bush.”

Ren stretched out his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Oh no, no, we would pay you, right now, for one crate,” he laughed. “That money’s yours.”

Likhaan snapped his eyes back on Ren, looking him up and down, then looked Hux up and down. He seemed to be paying particular attention to Hux’s boots. His shiny officer’s boots.

“Ah, so it’s the other thing is it?” Likhaan said. “It’s a trap? Undercover men sent to catch me out in a dodgy deal?” 

“Not at all.”

“Don’t flick my scales, sunshine. Look at you. Look at him, wearing First Order officer’s boots. Thought you lot could do better than that.”

Hux started to tense up and made conscious effort to appear looser, more relaxed, perhaps slightly nervous but most definitely not like a First Order officer. Years of training oneself to react to stressful situations by adopting strict military bearing were not helpful any more.

“Oh, those?” Ren smiled and laughed again. Just how the hell was he doing it. “Those belonged to an officer I was sleeping with.” No word of a lie there. No word of a lie.

Suddenly the two traders were all laughter and bonhomie. “Oh, I see how it is now. You might have a contact or two on that side? You might have a way in, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Wouldn’t blame them either. It must get lonely in the First Order. Pretty boys like these…”

Likhaan reached a scaly hand to Hux’s shoulder, grabbing hold and making to pull him closer. Hux reacted with a quick powerful punch to the underside of the reptilian’s jaw. While Likhaan was disoriented, he grabbed the arm that had grabbed him, and with his elbow, forced his attacker to the ground. It was instinct, training, and anger.

“No you don’t. Business only. Behave.” He placed a boot on the lizard man’s neck. He was not pressing down very hard, yet the reptilian was choking. He lifted his foot and Likhaan skulked away, one clawed hand at his throat.

“Well, that showed him, Mr Mullin.” 

The trader shook his head and rolled his eyes, clearly exasperated. Ren addressed him. “At least one of you can keep his hands to himself. One crate. Sabmert ray deflector generators. One thousand credits.”

“One? More like two.”

“We might have given you sixteen hundred before your colleague messed it up for you.” Hux was getting into his role now.

“Fifteen hundred.”

“Thirteen, and consider yourself lucky we’re even thinking about doing business with you. There might be some conditions on the deal.”

“He’s an arsehole, I should cut loose from him.” The trader sounded as apologetic as he was going to get. “I’ll take thirteen hundred. And I’ll call in a haul droid to carry them for you.” He pulled out a ledger and flicked through it. “Minimal paperwork. I only need it in my own ledger, if you get me.” 

Kylo took out a small wallet. Hux had never known him to carry a wallet. Where had he got this wallet from, and whose was it? Long fingers plucked a credit notation from the wallet. He showed it to the trader, who nodded, and then scanned it with a reader. Hux glanced surreptitiously at the notation, which was in the name of an Artan Czeram. Aha. Kylo took the trader’s pen and signed, and he was most definitely signing something which started with an A.

Hux was appalled and disgusted and impressed and thrilled and a tiny little bit turned on.

“A pleasure doing business with you, Mr Czeram.”

“And you. We will be in touch.”

A haul droid rolled up and hooked its lifting rods under the crate of shield components. 

“Tap in your destination” it said. Hux tapped the screen, which showed a grid plan of the port. He tapped to bring the light side port into view, and tapped in 46 for the _Duskwing’s_ parking bay. The droid started to roll forwards, and Ren and Hux followed after another nod goodbye to the trader.

After they were out of sight and earshot, Hux had a question. “Where the fuck did you get those credits? And that wallet.”

“I stole it.” Ren smirked. “Don’t look like that.”

“I’m trying not to, but really, law and order. How did you get the security for the credit?”

“Stole that too. Tell you when we get back to the ship.” 

“And you’ll expect me to approve.” 

“I have been restrained and focused.”

“How?”

“I didn’t kill the creature who touched you. I wanted to, but I decided it was more important to get the parts.”

“Well done.”

“I should go back and kill him. It feels wrong that he should continue to live.”

Hux was reassured to hear that his companion retained some of his old anger and violent impulses, at the same time as being very pleased at his capacity to restrain them. He was a little irked at the help he’d received through the Force, though. His own boot had been on the creature’s neck and that was enough. He could look after himself.

“The way you spoke to those men; I’ve never heard anything like it from you. So conversational. Where does it come from?”

“Memories. Instinct. Somewhere.”

He must have meant memories of his father. It would not be appropriate to maintain that line of questioning. Not for either of them. At least Commandant Hux had not lived to see any of this. Not the failure, not this, none of this.

 _How far am I now, disgraced former general Dion Hux, from the golden destiny of the children of the Empire?_  

No. Hux bit down on his cheeks and strengthened himself. There were tasks to be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content note: sexual harassment and attempted assault on main character by background original male character. Main character uses physical force to defend himself.


	4. The sort of man who does this sort of thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux plays electrician and then discovers something exciting in his subconscious.

Back at the _Duskwing_ , Hux and Ren were inspecting their new shield generators. The mini transporter on which the _Duskwing_ was based would only have had one shield generator in the form of a standard ray deflector, but this had been replaced with four superior ray deflectors, three of which were now broken. Five of the ceramic tiles which made up the ship’s physical shielding were cracked and pitted.

“We should test these new units before we install them. You must surely have a basic electrotest unit,” tutted Hux.

“Don’t rush me, I’m finding it.”

Hux sighed audibly. He didn’t want to think of the state of disarray that the ship’s tool locker must be in. But after a short period of noise and cursing, a hand thrust out of the tool locker, holding an electrotest unit. “There. Test them, keep three.” Ren wriggled ungracefully from the locker, “I’ll take the rest, sell them on this side, get ceramics, and we’re half way on our way and a few hundred credits richer”

“Don’t forget: arrange for our paint job to be done, and get a fuel cell. And please, never let us get so low on fuel again. Your recklessness will be the death of us.”

“My recklessness brought me to your door.” Now, that was not to be argued with.

“I take it that you want me to wire these in?” Hux asked. “I’m not familiar with the wiring on this vessel.”

“You’re narrower than me.” Ren held his hands apart just so, to indicate Hux’s slenderness. “You’ll fit into the tight part next to the conduit.” 

_Oh, great._

“I think they’re on two loops,” continued Ren. “One is the original loop and the other comes off the same circuit as the sublight drive. Or the thrusters. You’ll figure it out.”

Hux felt his head starting to pound. If this were a standard build, he could consult the owner’s manual and there find all the information he desired. If the modifications had been done by a responsible person, then documentation would have been kept and there would be such a thing as an up to date wiring diagram. But, logically, there were two main suspects in the frame for the modifications. One was Kylo Ren and the other, given that Ren had had this ship from quite a young age, was his father, Han Solo. Neither, from what Hux had experienced of the former and heard of the latter, was likely to have left an up to date wiring diagram. This was going to be yet another bloody nightmare.

He loosened the retaining bolts on the crate, opened it, took out a generator unit (quite heavy for its size) and connected the test electrodes. It passed, as did the next two, and another one he decided to keep as a spare. “Take them,” he said, indicating the crate, “come back with ceramics, and while you’re at it please think about what a difficult job you’ve given me.”

It was a job, however, and it presented the opportunity to solve a problem and feel useful. There was, thankfully, a manual in the tool locker. A neat list in a scratchy hand (which was not Kylo Ren’s handwriting) listed the main alterations. A wiring schematic in the manual gave some help, and on tracing the wires back from the broken generators, it appeared that Ren was correct: two of the ray deflectors were on the sublight drive loop. Hux isolated the original generator loop and the sublight drive loop from power, and double checked with the electrotest unit. Powering the shield generators on the same circuit as the sublight drive was bloody madness, especially without a load balancer. A energy leak from a ray deflector could knock out the inductor to the fucking sublight propulsion unit control system. What kind of idiot would… no, he knew exactly what kind of idiot would have done it this way. A liability to himself and others. 

There was no load balancer in the tool locker (why had he not checked out the job before going along with Ren to source the parts? Stupid, stupid), but there was a roll of cable with about 90m left on it, and a box of cable glands, ties, and supports. Please, thought Hux, let this be the right cable for the job. He sighed, hoped, and looked at the documentation for the new ray deflector. The cable he had was lower rated than the cable he needed. But only slightly. Hux thought of safety tolerances and how conservative they tended to be, and took a gamble. He could wire in a new loop for the shield generators with that cable: there were spare connections on the junction box, so it was simply a matter of terminating and glanding the connection there. The job would require some crawling and shuffling in a cramped crawlspace next to the wiring conduit, but it was possible.

While wriggling and grunting his way alongside the wiring conduit, cable ties between his teeth, feeding his new loop of wire through, Hux did stop and note to himself that a mere two days ago he had been the commanding officer of a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer, and had had a whole crew of electrical engineers at his disposal. But he had not climbed to the position he was in, no, the position he had been in, without a good grasp of the basics.

He also noted that the crawlspace was a tight fit and it was very unlikely Kylo could have comfortably squeezed himself through, with his broad shoulders. A thought came to him – what if Kylo got stuck in the crawlspace and had to be pulled out by the heels, complaining as he went? Hux couldn’t laugh as hard as he suddenly found himself wanting to, for fear of dropping the cable ties out of his mouth.

Once out of the crawlspace, he could at last connect the new ray deflectors. The new units came with a wiring schematic and the correct electrical connectors, because they had been made and shipped by competent professionals, and they were thankfully not too difficult to install. Hux allowed himself a few deep breaths and continued with the next installs, re-coupling the loose ends of the sublight drive control loop as he went. He was tightening the connections on the second install when Ren returned, pulling a trolley with a box of tiles and a fresh fuel cell.

“Nearly done,” called Hux, “Just one more to go.”

 “I knew you were brilliant.”

Hux clambered out of the starboard maintenance hatch where he had been working, and lowered himself to the ground.  

“Did everything go alright?”

“Yep. I sold the ray deflectors and made a nice six hundred credits profit, which is not bad for before breakfast.” Ren patted his pockets and looked very proud of himself. “Did you set a chrono to port time?” he asked.

“Of course I did. It’s 0850.” Well past breakfast time, in Hux’s opinion.

“At 1115 a paint crew will come. Two droids. We can stay inside if we lock and use interior air. They’ll sandblast and then paint.”

“Do we need to mask off viewports and exhausts? What about sensors?”

“They’ll do that. I’ll make sure they know where the sensor ports are. Then we can go inside and make our own entertainment while they make our ship pretty.”

“Yes. I approve of that plan. We still have a lot of catching up to do.” Even after the way they had started the morning. He wouldn’t say no, that was for sure.

Ren smiled wickedly. “Oh, I forgot. I got you some caf.” He handed Hux an insulated cup of caf, and a small package which Hux tore open to reveal a sort of soft bread. “Those were selling well. And people seemed to be enjoying them.” The bread smelled good and tasted better. The caf was on the borderline of being acceptable.

Hux heaved the last replacement ray deflector onto the wing of the ship, swung himself up after it, and opened the port maintenance hatch. “Want to watch me at work? You might learn something.”  He carefully and methodically repeated the same actions that he had perfected on the first two installs. He wanted to appear super-competent again, to make a point. Maybe not to make a point to Kylo. Finally, with his tongue between his teeth, he sketched out a partial wiring schematic for the ship on the inside back flap of the owner’s manual, and making a mental note to complete it later. He added to the list of modifications: “3 shield generators replaced with new Sabmert units”, added the date and signed it, D.B.M. Hux, with a slight thrill.

“I am rather satisfied with the job I have done. ‘Job’s a good one,’ as I believe they say. I have brought some order and method to your ship’s electrics, which was lacking. I am sure there is more I could do, but it would require more time than we have.”

Ren smiled, that lopsided smile that made Hux’s heart ache. “I am very glad to have you with me,” he said. Those words echoed something. A phrase from one of the peculiar dreams: “I am so glad I have you,” it had been, on the swimming platform in the dream, but close enough. Those were words that he had firmly, undeniably believed that Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, Commander of the First Order, could and would never say. And here he was, throwing them around in natural conversation. _The man of my dreams_ , thought Hux, and shook his head at himself.

“What?”

“Nothing. Tell me, what are we going to do for the next, what, hour and a half? I could make use of more breakfast to be quite honest.”

“Alright. Let me stow those,” Ren said, indicating the boxes of ceramic composite tiles and the fuel cell, “we shall get some food, and we can finish work when we get back. Or do you not like to leave a task unfinished?”

“We aren’t leaving a task unfinished. We are taking a break in between one task and another.”

Ren smirked. Oh. So he’d been mocking him. Alright then.

 

* * *

 

“Is the meat safe from these places?”

“I expect so. Are you worried for your tender little stomach? Planetside food too rich a dish?”

Hux hissed through his teeth. “I’m perfectly fine from eating last night. I simply thought it worth asking, about a stall, or shack , or whatever you call it.” The place probably wasn’t even regulated.

“Seems busy. Usually a good sign.  And, look, it’s cooked on a hot fire.”

Hux was by now too busy chewing his food to answer.

On the way back to the ship (the ship – their ship – Ren’s ship – _their ship_ ), Hux came to the realisation that he was almost comfortable here. His vigilance was at medium to low maintenance levels.  Just enough to make intrigued judgements about the life-forms populating the port

A rather tubby and large-headed alien, Gabdorin if Hux wasn’t mistaken, shooed a trio of loitering human children from the front of his shop. One of the children yelled a crude insult at the Gabdorin, likening him to an ugly vegetable. As Hux and Ren passed, the kid turned his attention to them.

“What happened to your face?”

One of the other kids joined in. “You’re ugly. Your face is all fucked up.” He sniggered.

This was going to be a test.

“Workplace incident,” Ren said, fixing the children with a hot stare that quickly evaporated their bravado. “You really shouldn’t ask people such rude questions. One day you’ll talk back to the wrong person.”

The children, now looking quite uncomfortable, backed away and ran off down an alleyway. It could have gone much worse.

The shopkeeper emerged from his shop again, carrying an old transceiver set. He sat on an upturned crate, and turned up the volume on the transceiver.

“It’s the news,” Hux hissed to Ren. “We should try to listen to the news.”

The main news story was about a fire at a First Order bonded factory and warehouse in Neutral territory, and speculation as to whether the fire had been set by Resistance saboteurs.

“What about that fire, eh, Four Belts,” the shopkeeper called to a nearby woman. The woman was indeed wearing, he counted them, four belts, and had the look of a long time freighter pilot.  

“Someone’s lost a lot of money there. Glad it’s not me.”

“You reckon insurance will pay out?”

“Not a chance. Underwriters are still reeling from Starkiller.”

Hux flinched. This was already uncomfortable listening. If, though unlikely, if a story about instability in the upper ranks of the First Order had made it to the regular news broadcasts, it would be even worse. Best to go back to the ship.

 A beggar sat outside the covered archway that led to the corridor backing the spaceport’s covered bays. Ren threw her some coins.

Inside, Hux had a question. “Did you, you know, do anything to those kids? To their minds?”

“Not anything severe. Just a little mild aversion. Make them think twice.”

“Good.”

The whole situation would never have happened with a few Stormtroopers around the place. Hux had spotted a couple of blue-uniformed port authority police agents, but lounging and drinking fruit juice rather than actively patrolling. It was a rather sorry sight. Shopkeepers, like the stout and hard-working Gabdorin they had seen, would surely welcome a more robust approach to law and order that would allow them to conduct their business in peace.

Back at the ship, Ren dragged the box of ceramic composite tiles back down the ramp. “I can put these on.”

“What about the fuel cell? You don’t have the right protective equipment to handle it, surely?”

“I have some. And I intend to use the Force to move the cell and to make a temporary shielding around it.”

“Careful. Radiation makes me nervous. I’m going inside. Ugh, look at my clothes: still covered in shite from grubbing about in your ship.”

 

* * *

 

After taking off his shirt, shaking it off and brushing off his pants as best he could, Hux sat on the mattress and folded the blankets neatly. He remembered, then, something from his youth, seemingly of little relevance. His father, raging at his sister, calling her a degenerate brat, asking her if she wanted to be a whore to low life scum. Hux’s sister had been caught reading an unsuitable romance novel. Hux had thought the whole thing stupid. No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t the whole memory. He had thought the idea of romance novels silly and sentimental, and had been surprised that his studious, terse sister should indulge such an undesirable passion alongside her more frivolous friends. But he had been curious, and had always operated on the principle that the more knowledge he could square away, the better. So he had secretly gone through the trash, taken the data card containing the novel, and secreted it in his bunk. 

The novel was not particularly well written, and concerned a young woman of good background who was seduced by a handsome, dashing, scoundrel. The young heroine seemed foolish and dull to Hux, and he did not understand what anyone, law-abiding or criminal, might have seen in her other than her frequently described good looks. Hux had tried to imagine himself as the roguish hero, but found himself repelled at the idea of committing the acts of skulduggery that were the scoundrel’s everyday routine. There was, however, something about the way the hero talked and behaved that was terrifying and fascinating. The thought of it had given Hux an uneasy sensation deep in his belly. He had realised later, before locking the memory away and putting a heavy stone on the box it was in, what the uneasy sensation that returned to him every time the idea of the dashing scoundrel occurred and reoccured to him meant. He was, in fact and of course, dangerously infatuated with the idea of the rogue, and that the fear and disgust he felt were fear of what it would mean for a good Imperial boy to be attracted to such a type, and disgust at himself for being supposedly a good Imperial boy, and attracted to such an undesirable type. Being attracted to fine upstanding fellow soldiers, he soon realised, was not the same thing at all.

It occurred to Hux that he had just run away with a handsome, dashing man who behaved in ways easily categorised as roguish. Had Hux not witnessed acts of thievery and fraud, assisted by the Force, and had he not found himself excited by them? Turned on, even? His hand had found its way to the front of his pants and he was already hard again. “I’m a good Imperial boy,” he thought to himself, and a wave of delicious arousal spread throughout him. “A good Imperial boy.” It rushed through him like fire. He needed his handsome scoundrel to come in and discover him, and make a whore of this supposedly good boy.

He’d had him once already this morning, but he wanted it again. This was different, very much different.

Footsteps sounded on the hatch steps, then the hatch closed and air locked.

“Ren. Ren!” Arousal and desire thickened his voice. “Come here, I need you.” 

“I am here” Ren called. “Oh. I see that you do.”

He knelt on the mattress next to Hux, and his presence alone was enough to make Hux bite his lip and quietly whine, before sighing, “Everything you’ve been doing: thieving; inappropriate use of the Force; skulduggery. I like it. I mean, I _like_ it.”

Kylo looked hungrily at the junction of Hux’s legs. “So I can see. This is something I had not been expecting.”

“You’re… a filthy scoundrel. I shouldn’t want that, But I do. I want you all the more for it. I’m supposed to be,” he took a big breath before getting the rest of the words out, “a good Imperial boy, not the sort of boy who runs away with pirates.”

“But here you are.” Kylo ran his hands over Hux’s chest, to shivers of delight.

“I shouldn’t like it so much.”

“But you do.” He understood. Of course he understood.

“Make me yours. Do what you want to me.” Hux was already dizzy with want, even before a large hand slipped between his legs and a hot mouth kissed his neck.

“A good boy, you say?” Ren’s hand pressed against him, feeling how embarrassingly, deliciously hard he was, and he moaned softly. “You shouldn’t take these off then,” and Hux had his belt undone, his weapons cast aside and his pants around his knees before Ren could carry on speaking. Ren helped him off with his boots, then lay between Hux’s thighs, pinning him down on the mattress with his weight.

“I shouldn’t. I’m… a good, upstanding, Imperial boy.” Saying the words made his cock twitch and his breath come thickly.

'But you’re giving yourself to me.”

“Yes.” Hux could barely believe the sound of his own voice as it came from this mouth, squeaking, pathetic, needy, so, so needing to be taken and shown what he was. He pushed his hips up against Kylo’s clothed body and heard more wanton sounds coming from his own throat.

“Keen, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

His dangerous pirate lover kissed and licked his neck right where his pulse pounded and surged beneath his skin. He gasped for breath.

“Tell me what you want.” Ren’s voice was soft but irresistible.

“Anything, anything, _you already know;_ have me, fuck me, you know I want you, please, please.”

Ren raised himself up, only to undo his trousers and pull them to his knees, then lowered himself back onto Hux’s body, rutting against him. He kissed Hux’s breathless, panting mouth and Hux snatched and tore kisses from him with desperate tongue and lips. 

A hissing, growling noise came from the outer wall of the craft. The droids had started sand blasting the old grey paint from the ship. The sound was muted by the ship being air locked, but it still reverberated through the ship’s structure.

Hux grabbed Ren’s hips and pulled him as tight and close as he could, thrusting up against him, still kissing him in hot fierce gasps. His little phrase, _I’m a good Imperial boy_ , kept going through his head, sending a fresh wave of heat through him each time. He clung on to Ren’s body and fucked himself up against it, hearing the sounds coming from his throat against the background grinding drone of sand pummelling the ship. Ren held himself up on one elbow and guided his other hand to enclose them both. 

He felt the same pressure wave pass through his head as before.

_I think you want more than this_

_Yes (yes yes yes)_

_Tell me_

_I’m a good Imperial boy, I don’t…_

_Oh, but you do, and I know you do_

_Fuck me. Have me, make me yours. (Fuck me like you dirty pirates do it)_

Ren sat back and flipped him over, effortlessly, drawing his limbs into position; and Hux let him, like he was a doll. Face down. Arse up. Knees spread. Made ready.

He felt hot damp air, first over his balls, then over his exposed arsehole. A whine of anticipation led into a moan when Ren’s wet tongue spread itself over him. He had always liked Ren’s tongue, since it had first wrapped around his cock. And even more since he first laid it out across his skin like this, lapped at him, probed at him, dipped into him. He’d done it to Kylo first, made _him_ squeal and pant. And now this.

Kylo was licking and sucking at him hungrily, and although the sound of the paint droids’ sandblasting made his noises inaudible, Hux could feel every hum and moan.

Deep, warm, delicious shame fanned out across his backside and down his legs. He was going to open up for this pulsing tongue, for this man who cheated and stole and used the Force and who knew what he liked. Here he was, a good Imperial boy: face down in a mattress on some squalid little starship, getting tongue-fucked by a dirty wicked pirate. Ren’s tongue was long and muscular and, hells, when he flexed it, it almost felt like a cock entering him. But he wanted something more: something bigger, lovely and thick and hard. He hoped Ren could somehow still hear his thoughts.

Ren removed his tongue. 

Hux caught sight of his washbag zipping through the air. Ren was rummaging through it, disordering it, then finding the lube. He bit his lip hard and waited. Then they were there: wet fingers slipping in, easily in, replacing the tongue and making way for what was to come after. Hux grunted and pushed back against them, wiggling slightly.

_Open me up. Fuck me like your sort do, make me yours._

Soon, Ren’s cock was at him, nudging at him, ready to be inside. He twitched and opened more and then, _oh_ , Ren was in him, slowly pushing and filling him up. A deep thudding pleasure, warm and lovely, suffused him. He let himself moan. Nobody would hear him.

Kylo went at him slowly at first, gripping his waist with his huge hands and rolling his hips into him.

_I’m just letting him do it and it feels so good._

 The pace increased.

Hux felt he was getting louder. _A whore to low life scum_. So good. So good.

One of Ren’s hands reached further around his waist. Long fingers closed and folded around the head of his dick, bringing him closer and closer, and there was no longer any question of being able to hold back. It was white heat and everything in him being drawn instantly out of him. 

The sound of sandblasting faded.

“Well, that was new,” Ren said as Hux got himself tidied up and dressed again. “I don’t think I’ve had quite that effect on you before.”

“I was remembering something. Another box, here,” and Hux tapped his head, “opened up. Turns out I have a bit of a thing for men like you.”

“And you didn’t before?”

“Don’t be obtuse. You will be relieved to know I have tidied the idea away again, so I shan’t be pawing at you like a slut every time you do anything that way inclined.”

“I marvel at your self control. And I marvel at how good you think your self control is.”

Maybe it _was_ wrong. Maybe the desire was incorrect and the shame and disgust were correct. There had never been another way than the Imperial way. All his training, his Imperial officer class upbringing in the Unknown Regions where the family had fled with next to nothing but their pride; the bitterness, the hurt, the expectation: all of it said that he must stay on this narrow path of duty, no matter what. It said he had to get to the top, to make it alright again, that he couldn’t let any of them down. Yet he had turned away out of selfishness.  And for what, for _sex_?

It was one thing to have been occasionally distracted by sex while still be in full control and exercising all of his duties, but _now_? The duties were gone. Twice in one day he had been no more than a slave to his own desires. Is that what he was now?

He had been imagining himself as stepping off a conveyor belt seconds before being tipped into the mouth of a shredding, churning machine. But really, that was self serving nonsense. He felt sickened at himself, at the lengths he would go to to justify his cowardice and his treachery. 

He was brought from his rumination by the sound of Kylo’s voice. 

“You are anxious still.” Kylo was regarding him curiously, his brows slightly gathered.

“I should have self control. But I don’t. And you know that.”

Kylo chewed on his lip. “It’s alright. I was mocking you.”

“Doesn’t stop there being truth in it.”

“Why are you ashamed now? You always enjoyed it. This morning, for a recent example.”

“What if I don’t have the discipline? What if I need the structure of a duty roster and I fall apart and lose myself without it? What if we get captured, because instead of doing what we need to keep moving and stay safe, I can’t control myself around you?”

Kylo shushed him.

“We are human men. We have needs.”

“So? We are not animals. We should be able to control ourselves.”

“And we can. But neither are we droids. Don’t make so much of it. You know full well you’re capable.”

Hux truly wished he did.

“I feel your pain and your doubt,” Kylo said. “I can’t not.” 

“I believe you. I’m sorry for doubting. It’s all too much to think about.” He took a breath. “I didn’t know how much I wanted to be, well, wanted. And cared for. I feel so weak and stupid.”

“Hux, listen. You are not weak. You have a strength that I do not have.”

“I had something, once. But it’s been, ugh, almost like being dead. Which, really, I should be.”

“But you’re not. And you have to do what you can with what you have.” That was something like one of Hux’s father’s old Imperial sayings, but different. More forgiving, perhaps? No, that didn’t make sense. War was not about forgiveness. Ren’s version of the saying was softer in some way, though. Perhaps simply more realistic.

“I have been useful today. There is that.” He had been a political strategist (to his own ends, but it felt worthwhile), he had been a low-rent trader of some description and he had been an electrician, and all before breakfast. It was, he had to admit, more satisfying than the previous months of busywork and constant meetings. Successful campaigns had been fought against the enemy, but it had seemed empty and almost futile compared to the mighty sense of purpose he had had when he had been _the_ General Hux, the one he could not be again.

_More thinking. Stop thinking. Stop. Hold it all back. Trust in this. Let this be your honour._

The paint job was by this time finished. Hux was keen to take a look at it. The ship was now a dull beige with a russet accent stripe down the starboard side. A nondescript little craft, with the manoeuvrability of a racing ship and the armour of a military shuttle hidden under her hull.

Hux addressed the maintenance droids. “How long does this paint take to set and cure?”

“The fast setting coating will be dry and clear for flight in a little under three hours, sir.” Hux liked being called “sir”, even by a paint-spraying droid. He thanked the droids and dismissed them, before turning to Ren.

“That’s three hours longer than I’d like. Nothing can be done about it, but every minute we’re here I feel like we’re a sitting target. Word must have got out about us.”

“In our favour, well, look at her, she doesn’t match the description any more. I am also keeping prying eyes away with the Force.”

“Now we need to change the identification code and the serial numbers.”

“Can you do that? Can you generate a new serial number that matches the vessel type?”

“Yes, if I look on the Holonet to see how the serial numbers are generated. I should be able to get into the ship’s computer and change the ident code. I wouldn’t even call it slicing in: the security on these old ships is practically non-existent.” 

“So, goodbye _Duskwing_ , hello _Firecrest_.”

“I do rather like it.”

“You know, this is the second best ship I’ve ever flown.”

“After your shuttle?”

“No! Well armoured, but awful to fly. I made my pilots let me take control of it once. Then I decided it was best for all concerned if I didn’t do so again. I meant after the Millennium Falcon.”

Hux shook his head. These tales of the enemy, coming from this man, from the Knight Commander, the enforcer, the purifying blade. Or, on the other hand, tales of long forgotten days a boy spent with his father aboard the most infamous ship in the galaxy. He sighed. “This is a very fine ship indeed, and I would be greatly honoured if you would allow me to take the controls again.”

“Of course. You are better at it than I am.” 

A little later, Hux had a question that would not go unasked. “Tell me, who is Artan Czeram and why do you have his credits?”

Ren raised an eyebrow. “After what happened earlier, I wonder if I should tell you.” Hux glared at him, but was ignored. “Artan Czeram is a corrupt Republican who has been secretly funneling resources to the First Order. He has also been playing a double game, passing another, smaller stream of funds to the Resistance, hoping to worm his way into their trust. He thinks he is clever, playing out his little spy fantasy. Idiot. I took him into my custody and interrogated him about his deceit, showing him the trail that led from him to the Resistance. He whined about his double game, but I wasn’t having it.”

“So?”

“So, I took from him one of his lines of credit. I have a wallet containing his physical money, which I simply took from him, along with the memory of my having done so. I also have his ability to borrow money from the bank. I took his credentials right out of his stupid little mind.”

“You used an interrogation to set yourself up for this?”

“Of course. I was still allowed out on little errands, fairly closely supervised.”

“Even once you had plans to leave?”

“Hiding those plans was much easier than I could ever have thought. I simply stopped assuming that it was impossible. I am no longer a servant of the Supreme Leader, and I no longer allow him unrestricted access into my head.”

“That’s a rather grandiose and optimistic claim to make.”

“It is a fight, but I am strong enough. I am no longer fighting against myself, you understand.”

“You had better be right. For my sake as well as yours.”

“I don’t believe he even took this ship into account. He thought he had me on a leash. I took care to give every impression of remaining obedient. I would go and do what I was asked to do, and take the opportunity to steal small things that I might need. I would hide them away in here.”

Hux raised his eyebrows. “That’s brave or foolish or both. Which is you in a nutshell, really.”

“The shirt you are wearing came from the washing line of a suspected associate of a suspected Force-sensitive. I folded it up, stuffed it inside my own clothes and secreted it here in the duffel bag. Nobody saw me. Nobody knew this ship was functional.”

Hux was genuinely impressed at the audacity of it all. The Master of the Knights of Ren, feared and renowned, thieving like a little child, like a great demonic magpie. All of it under the nose of First Order officers and of the Supreme Leader himself.

“I saw you,” he said. “On my map. Always so far away. I did miss you. Even when I still blamed you for everything, I wanted to know where you were.”

“I was to blame for much of it. I’ve told you that. In my defence, I would say my actions were, though I was not fully conscious of it, the first steps in the mission I now have. And as such, a great upwelling in the Force was shaping and guiding events beyond our control.”

“I will get you to explain your mission to me, properly, if it kills me. I can’t do strategic planning unless I know what your goals are.”

“I had a list, written down, I’ll show you.”

“I’ve seen it! Sorry, but I have. When you were passed out, I found it slipped into a sort of pocket in your tabard.”

“Well then.”

“It had a handful of words on it. Really, it was barely a list at all.”

Ren made a face. “Your low opinion of me says more about you than it does about me.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t pick on you. It’s a bad habit of mine. I was on the list. I was extremely touched to see that.”

“Yes. And now we are on the ‘escape’ section of the plan, which means we are going to Hegaria, where I need to find someone who may be able to help us.”

“I’d like to go to Hegaria.”

Ren did a double take. “What? I thought you had a pathological fear of setting foot on any system under Republic control.’

“Hegaria, my sweet, is where the whisky comes from.” Hux blushed. He hadn’t meant to call anyone “my sweet”. It had slipped out. He was horrified to think of what might come next. In any case, he should have been asking about the ‘T.A’ of Ren's list, not indulging his own interests.

“We are not going on a distillery tour.”

“I’m not asking to. I just would like to see the Northern Uplands of Hegaria. Taste the crystal clear water. See the mountains. I’ve never really been anywhere.”

“I know you lack experience in the field. But you have proved yourself so far.”

Hux took comfort from this. It meant something. He would have the chance to prove himself further, on the next stage of the journey. It would be somewhat of an adventure, although who knew how long it would last.

_If my days are numbered, let them be good days. If not, let them be good days nonetheless._

“We can find a forest or a lake. Somewhere you would like. I want to show you something of life. I suppose in a way that might be part of my mission.” 


	5. Onwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The departure from Laspen III is not a smooth one.
> 
> content notes at end

Hux walked from the rear of parking bay 46 into the warm open air of Laspen III. He bent, picked up a handful of dirt, and with a wince, rubbed it into the shiny leather of his boots.

The words of that vile lizard creature returned to him. “Look at him, wearing First Order officer’s boots. Thought you lot could do better than that.” He’d scuffed up his boots a little while crawling about in the ship and installing those shield generators, but really they needed to be even less shiny, less recognisable. 

He could hear the coolant system undergoing a cleaning and filtering cycle; a soothing, throbbing sound. He had no faith whatsoever that this had hitherto been a regularly performed piece of maintenance. 

 The noise quietened. The coolant system had finished its cycle, and Hux could now reboot the central computer. It had been responsive to his blandishments, and had allowed him to enter a secure mode and input a new ident code and serial number. Fingers crossed, the ship’s new identity would not be traceable to its old one.

Hux climbed back into the _Firecrest_ , formerly _Duskwing_ , made his way to the cockpit, and rebooted the system. He was taken by the thought that he very much enjoyed looking after a little ship, and only wished that he had more time to do all the little bits and pieces of maintenance that a responsible owner likes to do. He regretted the time that had been lost the previous evening to eating and crying and drinking. On the other hand, with the state that Ren had been in, he had needed, deeply needed, to take that time to hold on to him and tell him it was going to be alright. 

Ren burst in through the hatch, banging on the floor to get Hux’s attention.

“You were on the news.”

“What? What did they say?”

“It was noted that you weren’t present at the last conference of High Command.” 

There hadn’t been one scheduled. But calling one would be a good way to subtly make it known to those who cared to know (officials, interested citizens, the Republic’s spies and Orderologists and various entrail-poking obsessives) that General Hux was absent, perhaps for Reasons. 

“And there is, according to the analyst they had on to talk, ‘chatter on the lines’ regarding your whereabouts.”

“Shit. Did they mention you?”

“No. The discussion was split as to purge, coup or defection.”

Bloody hell. Hux was indeed glad he wasn’t having to listen to this out in the open.

“Right. There will be units searching for us, if they’ve let it be public knowledge. Standard OP. Nobody knows it better than I do.”

“So. Time to go.”

“Are the sensor ports clear? Nothing blocking laser firing ports? Clean water onboard?”

“Walk round with me and check. Are systems clean?”

The central computer was in the process of initialising. Four seconds of flashing lights seemed like four months. Thank the thousand billion stars, the welcome screen and “about this ship” screen gave Hux answers he liked. It had worked. The ship was now clean.

“It’s worked. We have a clean ID and all systems are still reading as satisfactory.”

“Is everything stowed away inside?”

Hux made his way to the hatch. “All cargo secure. Bags strapped in.” He double checked the galley lockers. “Lockers secure. I’ll join you on a final walk round. Then we’ll go.”

 The pre flight check was almost complete: exhaust vents clear, laser firing ports clear. Ren ripped a piece of masking tape off a passive sensor window.

There was a loud bang on the door that led from the parking bay to the corridor.

“Port authority police! Open up!”

Hux drew his blaster. Either this was about Ren’s credit fraud or someone had tagged them. If they’d been tagged, they weren’t going to talk their way out of it, not in these half-arsed disguises and not with their original uniforms packed away in a duffel bag inside the ship.

“Prepare to defend. Cover me. However you do that.” Hux had only seen a few rare holorecordings of the Knight of Ren actually using his skills in active combat. He would stop fire and deflect it, sometimes with the blade, and he would physically use the Force against opponents. It had always looked rather impressive, but how exactly this would work right now, Hux wasn’t sure. But his part would be straightforward. Take out every threat, as quickly as possible.

“Open this door!”

Two men in blue uniforms burst through the door. Hux noted, as he calmly shot both of them, that they looked nervous. Two rounds of blaster fire had passed by him, and not all that close: they hadn’t been good shots either. Bloody amateurs. One of the police agents was groaning in pain. Hux put another couple of bolts of blaster fire into him, and he stopped moving.  

Kylo pointed his hand towards the door, summoning the Force to defend against whatever the next threat might be. 

Hux stepped back onto the ramp of the ship’s side hatch, to get some cover from the body of the ship itself. He kept his blaster trained on the door, ready for the next visitor.

“Oh, do come on in,” Kylo called out. He drew his lightsaber, and switched it on.

One or more port authority agents had the door slightly ajar, using it as cover, and firing through the gap. Kylo was almost casually deflecting their fire with his lightsaber, as though he were playing at some sport. He reached out with his other hand and flung the door open with the Force, leaving the agents exposed, their eyes wide in shock. They attempted to retreat, but found themselves rooted to the spot. Hux had a clear shot at both of them, and took them down efficiently.

Ren switched off his lightsaber and turned for the ship. Before he was half way, the sound of blaster fire came from behind, from the air side of the bay. He turned to face it.

Hux, too, turned and shifted across the side hatch to face the threat while giving himself a little cover. Three figures stood: one pointing a high powered blaster at Ren; another, an insectoid, aiming one at him. The third, a pale blue Duros in thick yellow and black weave, shouted, “Thought that would get your attention.”

Ren responded. “Three pathetic bounty hunters. Not giving yourselves good odds.”

“Give us the fugitive,” the Duros called back. He appeared to be the leader. “Better than talk. Hiding in the ship, is he, the little coward?”

The insectoid, a Melitto, spoke up with a voice that hummed and fizzed through a vocoder attached to their body. Hux strained to hear it at first, until the creature adjusted a volume control. “You have made a mistake, straying so far from the safety of your Order. Not to worry, we will have you safely tucked up in your own bed very soon.” 

Fuck! Had someone tracked them here? Was Ren’s ship not as incognito as Ren had made out? Had the shootout with the port authority agents drawn them to this bay or had they already known where to come? Hux’s chest tightened and his blood surged.

The gang leader was yelling again. “Enzat here is ex-Kanjiklub. He’ll take both of you.”

“I doubt that. Look at him. He seems unwell.” Ren took a few strides closer to the bounty hunters, arm outstretched.

The Kanji man was shaking, and visibly having difficulty holding his rifle.

“You have made a mistake, don’t you think?” Ren was as haughty and sarcastic as Hux had ever heard him, and Hux appreciated it more than he ever had.

The Duros man raised his own weapon and fired. Ren caught the blast of fire and held it in the air, blue and buzzing, for a few seconds before casting it to the ground. It was genuinely amazing to see up close and in the flesh. Hux could see the fear on the bounty hunter’s flat wide-eyed face. They’d thought they were dealing with an ordinary spacer: a smuggler or a pirate. Not a Force user. Not _this_ Force user.

Ren repeated his words. “A mistake. Don’t you think?”

Hux took aim at the Melitto’s breathing apparatus and fired twice. That ought to slow the fucker down.

Another noise came from the far side of the docking bay. Just a piece of scrap steel settling in a recycling pod, but Ren’s attention was distracted just for a moment, long enough for both the Duros gang leader and the Melitto to fire on Hux’s position. They, unfortunately, were no amateurs. One bolt caught Hux on the left shoulder before he had the chance to duck away. Fuck. The pain: burning, roaring, stabbing, intense pain. Real pain. Real damage. Not like a training simulation. Not at all.

Hux gritted his teeth and hissed, trying to control his breath and stay calm.  He fired three times at the gang leader, then took cover again. He took a quick glance at his wound. It was ugly; a large burn that would probably leave a small dent in his muscle, but not as bad as it could have been. It had only been a glancing blow. 

Hux was torn between crawling to the sleeping quarters to find his med pack, and continuing to fight. Ren’s powers were fearsome, yet it felt unfair and unsporting to leave him to battle all three bounty hunters. The Kanji man was suffering but not dead yet, and the Melitto would take some time to fully suffocate without his breathing apparatus. This left the Duros. He would have a weakness, and Hux would spot it. Hux quickly took another look. Ren was approaching the black and yellow clad bounty hunter, lightsaber now blazing. The Duros’ blaster was still pointed towards Hux. The Melitto was now aiming their weapon at Ren. This did not meet Hux’s approval. If they had any sense, they would have taken the Kanji blaster rifle from their colleague and used that instead. That way, if Ren’s attention were distracted again, they would have a better chance. 

This blue bastard Duros, though. His jacket looked like armour weave, which would repel regular blaster fire. It did not cover his head, so this was simply a question of target practice. From this angle, and with this wound, Hux needed to line himself up carefully and trust in his skills. 

He went side on, neck twisted to sight his blaster, breath held and lip bitten against the throbbing pain of his wound, put his finger to the trigger and took a series of shots at the Duros’ head. More blue bolts of fire headed back towards him, but missed, zipping and sputtering against the durasteel of the galley storage as Hux ducked back to cover. There was also a yelp. Hux deduced that one of his shots must have connected. He congratulated himself for that, and took a glance to see the state of play.  

The gang leader now wounded and thus distracted, Ren closed the gap and cut him down. Hux saw that the Melitto was beginning to struggle and weaken now. They attempted a shot at Ren, who deflected it and then casually stepped forward and sliced them in half, almost in the same motion. The Kanji bounty hunter’s choking gasps were audible above the buzz of the lightsaber. 

Hux wondered what the hell Kylo needed him for, if he could do all this without even bloody well getting himself shot. He hoped he hadn’t been humouring him by allowing him to take pot shots at ridiculously amateurish port authority cops. Patronising bastard.

“Come here and look at this.” 

Hux rose and walked down the ramp, holding his left arm across his body, feeling a throb of pain with every step. 

The bounty hunter was held, immobile and gasping, in an invisible Force grip. Kylo continued. “We were told this man would take the both of us on, and beat us. So it seems only fair that we should both take a part in his defeat. You finish him off.”

Kylo’s offer actually seemed more touching than patronising. Hux walked right up to the kneeling man and looked him in the eye. “You found me. Well done,” he said, and shot him directly in the face.

Ren turned to Hux and frowned. “You’re hurt.”

“Yes. Going inside to put a bacta patch on it now. Not fucking happy about it, by the way.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

Hux marched back inside, his anger at himself rising and spreading.

His clothing had been partly burned away by the blaster fire. He unbuttoned and removed his shirt. Lifting his arm above his head to remove the base layer underneath would be too painful. Instead, he opted to cut away the fabric to get proper access to the wound. Holding the fabric away with his teeth, he used the small blade from his boot to make four neat cuts. The med pack in his kit bag contained a bacta patch of suitable size for patching the blast wound of a fucking idiot who couldn’t take five fucking minutes of field combat without getting himself fucking well shot. Pathetic. Hux tore the backing off the patch and manoeuvred it under the flaps of cloth he had cut loose. The cool healing substance took the edge off the physical pain. He swallowed a painkilling capsule and mentally made a note of the time, so that he could take another one after the requisite dosage gap had passed.

Ren was still outside, searching the bodies of the three bounty hunters.

“We need to go. Now. Did you finish pre flight checks?”

“Yes. Do you want this rifle?”

Hux frowned. “Ugh. Yes. Bring it. Come on.”

“Everything stowed away inside? You patched up?”

“Yes and yes. Get in.”

Neither were fully strapped into their seats before the _Firecrest_ took off and ascended at an unseemly pace.

“I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“Could you stop being sorry. It’s my fucking fault. Couldn’t fucking last five fucking minutes. Idiot.” Hux balled his right hand into a fist and pounded it into his thigh. “Should have seen it coming. Left myself too open. So stupid. Stupid.”

“You don’t need to do that, you know.” 

“You were right. You and Phasma. You were always right about me. No fucking experience. No common sense. No heart. No courage.”

“Hux, shut up. Now.”

Hux managed to shut up until they had left the atmosphere.

“Why did you bring me? You could have taken them all on by yourself.”

“You know why I brought you with me. If I could wrench you from your self-pity for a moment, I could also remind you that if I had not had a copilot, I would have been shot to pieces escaping the _Finalizer._ ”

“You didn’t need to be there anyway. You only came to fetch me.”

“Exactly.”

Hux bit down on his lip and swallowed hard. When required to, he fed the secondary power in, allowing the sublight drive to fire up fully and balancing the power drain from the hyperdrive warm-up sequence.

“Check coordinates on chart.”

“Hegaria, northern hemisphere, Koire Station.”

“That’s us. Light speed, then.” Kylo engaged the hyperdrive. Points of light warped into lines. 

“So what now, more of the same?”

“It’s not easy for me, either,” Kylo said. “I have to keep going. We have to keep going. You think I wanted us to be intercepted? You think things are going according to plan?”

“Sorry. Let’s not.”

“You already made clear you think me barely capable of forming a plan. And now that happened. But we got out of there. We have to keep going.”

“I know we do.”

“I’m trying hard. It’s not just you who’s finding this tough.”

"Yep. Yep. I know."

“It’ll be safer on Hegaria, I promise.”

“Firstly, don’t promise things. Just don’t. Secondly, how can it be?”

“More laid back.”

“There’ll be a bounty on our heads before long. We got tagged on that little outpost, how are we not going to get tagged anywhere else?”

“It’s a respectable place. You know full well it is. We are less likely to meet the kind of threat we met today.”

“Ugh. Those people need a better system. Proper law and order, proper discipline. An education for their children. They need security. They could thrive with security.”

“Says the man who just methodically killed four of their representatives of law and order.”

“They were a threat. They needed to be eliminated.”

Ren laughed bitterly. “Your hypocrisy is notable. It gives you… character.”

“What? They were a bunch of rank amateurs. Peasant idiots. Any trading post, on any planet in the galaxy, needs better security than that. Genuine authority and discipline will allow these places to progress instead of scratching about in the dirt waiting for another war.”

Ren seemed unimpressed by this statement of principle.

“Peasants or not, I thought you took them down very efficiently.”

“Thank you.”

“You do realise that I am accustomed to having two whole squads of stormtroopers subdue an area before I step in? And that they wear betaplast armour, which you… weren’t? You did well.”

“I could have done better.”

“You don’t respond well to perceived failure.” Ren said it as though he had only just noticed it.

“Give that man a bloody medal. You are so very perceptive, aren’t you?”

“You didn’t have much experience of it before… the time when we lost the base.”

“No. Is this going anywhere?” Hux snapped. “Because I don’t think I appreciate it.” He turned his face away. “I did everything right. Everything. I did everything right,” he muttered to himself.

“You didn’t break all at once,” Ren said softly, infuriatingly softly. “You seemed to be coping. You managed to spend time with me, when I was recovering from my injuries. More than duty required.”

“Yes. I was distracting myself.” Hux stayed silent for a moment and then added, “No. You know why I was there.” He hung his head and screwed up his eyes, trying to will a mass of emotions away from his belly and away from his ribcage and away, out of him. It didn’t work. “Oh, I probably did fall apart, a bit. After you left. Kept it all hidden, obviously.” His anger returned suddenly. “I don’t know what sodding point you’re trying to prove.”

“It’s OK.”

Hux made a noise of disgust. “The man I was then would have the man I am now sent for special reconditioning.”

“You don’t have to be the man you were then. At least, not exactly. You know that. Take me as an example.”

“I’d rather not.”

“I know you don’t mean that.”

Saying things that he didn’t entirely mean was not a new habit for Hux. 

“You’re right, I don’t.” He looked at Kylo for a moment, then away. “I like what’s happened to you. I don’t understand it, but I like it. Still trying in vain to get a handle on what's happened to me. If we’re honest. I know you like it when I’m honest.”

Hux savoured his own bitterness for a minute or two, until he was interrupted.

“I searched them. I found a comm unit. Here.” Ren reached into his pocket and handed Hux a square personal comm unit. Hux took it.

“It’s not even locked, “ he said, tapping at it. “Terrible op-sec. Atrocious.” He scrolled up and up, reading, until he suddenly widened his eyes, made a fist, and swore. “Fuck!”

“What is it?”

“The dates on these communications. Fucking hell. Fucking hell.” Hux stared wildly for a second. “These people don’t know how to hide an email trail. The whole thread isn’t here, but it goes back far enough.”

“Hux…”

“Officers, First Order officers,” Hux almost spat the words, “were in touch with these bounty hunters. Not only before we arrived here, but before we left. Before we ever bloody left.”

“Really? Shit.”

“Did you know about this. Did you know about this part of it?” Hux repeated himself with urgency and a clenched jaw.

“No.”

“First Order officers, including an admiral on High Command, have fun guessing which one; were in comm with these people before you and I left the _Finalizer_. Before you even turned up. There _was_ a plot.” Hux slammed the comm unit down on his lap and threw his head back against his headrest, before picking the comm up again and reading. “Listen to this. After we left, there is an email. It says ‘change of plan, the bird has flown of his own accord. Track neutral zone ports and keep listening,’ and there is a list of five systems. Laspen is second on the list.”

“Oh.”

“Did you know about this?”

“No. I said so. I felt that you were in great danger, but I didn’t see anything specific. I don’t know everything, you know.”

“No. You bloody don’t. Shit.” Hux balled up his fist again and struck himself in the leg once more, but this time weakly. “Admiral fucking Beynon. You were right.”

So this was it. He _had_ been saved. Saved. Rescued. It was disgusting and pathetic and he hated it.

“I can’t go back now.” 

“You couldn’t go back anyway.”

This was true, but there was a chance, a slim possibility, a way of pretending that Hux had been abducted by an unstable Knight of Ren, had not gone willingly and could potentially arrange to be rescued by the Order. It was stupid and it barely functioned even as a slim possibility of a fantasy. Hux had to get a bloody grip of the facts. The facts were that a) he had freely chosen to desert his post and b) he was doomed in any case by the plot against him. These facts were independent.

“Not being able to go back because I chose to burn my bridges is rather different from not being able to go back because my number was up.”

“Both give the same end result. You can’t go back. And now you know you were right to leave.”

“That should be making me feel a lot better than it actually is.”

“I wonder if you sensed something. You knew, how did you put it, that you were fucked if you stayed, didn’t you?”

“Come off it. I’m about as sensitive as a bag of bolts, as you have often told me. I didn’t sense a Sith-damned thing.”

“You were on edge. Unusually so. You were fairly convinced that I had come to kill you”.

“True. It didn’t take the Force to pick up that something was wrong.” Hux curled his lip in disgust and self reproach. “I always thought Nareese, or more likely General Kells. Fuck, she’ll be livid at having been passed over. She was practically measuring up my quarters for new furniture.”

Kylo made a confused noise.

“I mean that figuratively. I am capable of metaphor, you know. Obviously the fucking furniture’s bolted to the fucking floor. Shit. I should have been more suspicious of Admiral Beynon. The weasel. The dirty little weasel. Snoke’s choice?”

Kylo shrugged. “I heard his name mentioned. I inferred that he was on the shortlist to be your replacement, as Metan Ren is to be mine.”

Hux stared at the bounty hunter’s comm unit with deep loathing. “It will all have come from Snoke. Just as you said. Just as I bloody suspected. Should have listened to myself.”

 “Yes. He lays down one toy and picks up another.” Kylo took a breath and let it out in a long heavy sigh. “I have invested a lot of background effort into staying hidden and keeping my barriers up. So maybe I didn’t see enough of the specific threat. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s not your responsibility,” Hux snapped. After a moment, he turned to Kylo and glared, eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell you what is your responsibility. Not asking them any questions. If you hadn’t been in such a hurry to terminate them we might have got more answers out of them than this damned comm unit will give.”

“They were a threat; I was annoyed, justifiably, and we needed to leave.”

“Couldn’t you sense that there were questions to answer? Such as, ‘who exactly sent you,’ for the most obvious example?”

“Sorry.”

“This is just like the Tuanul mission all over again. The information you could have had out of that San Tekka chap.”

“Hux, I would rather you didn’t.”

Hux did not apologise. He considered it, but chose to seethe instead. 

After a while, Ren spoke up. “How is your wound?”

“Patched. I took a painkiller. Still hurts.”

Ren adjusted a couple of switches, got out of his seat, and knelt beside Hux. “Let me look at it. I think I could help.” He unwrapped the bandage and gently peeled back the bacta patch. “Hmm. It’s not too bad, but it could still use some help.” He replaced the patch and wound the bandage back around Hux’s upper arm. “I can try to speed things up a little bit. It won’t be as if it had never happened, but it will hopefully heal up faster.” He put his palm over the wound and closed his eyes. 

Hux winced at the initial pressure. He then felt an odd warmth and a pins-and-needles kind of itching. After a few seconds, Kylo took his hand away and planted a gentle kiss just above the bandaged area.

“What the hell are you doing? I’m not a child.”

“I’m looking after you. You promised me you would look after me, when it must have hurt you to make that promise. I know.”

He was right, in one way. It had hurt. Everything had hurt. Everything was breaking, on that day. But the statement “I’ll look after you,” wasn’t a sacrifice. It was something very important. It hadn’t occurred to Hux that he might ever be the one needing to be looked after. That was something that didn’t apply. But here he was.

“Thank you. I think it’s helping. A bit. Thank you.”

"You should let me be nice to you."

Hux looked straight ahead. “The worst of it is, that it means you’re bloody right. Not me, can’t be me. You.” He made a quiet huff of resigned disgust. “You, somehow, got to turn up, send me visions, drag me into this absurd tale of light and dark and destiny and legacy, thoroughly fuck up my life; and you were bloody right.” He sighed. “I can’t stand it.”

Kylo allowed a few seconds silence. “I was right. I’m very glad I was right.”

“Smug bastard.”

“It wasn’t a foregone conclusion. I didn’t know for certain that I was right. That isn’t quite how the Force works.” 

“Smug arrogant Force fucker bastard.”

“I see you’re feeling better.”

There was warmth in Ren’s voice and on his stupid, intolerably beautiful face, and Hux couldn’t help but smile weakly at him. Hux had been shot and there had been at least one criminal gang after him and potentially soon a bounty on his head, not to mention the combined might of his own troopers and special forces, who would surely be chasing after them too. But it felt, well, very far from acceptable, but on reflection certainly manageable with Ren at his side. Dealing with the situation presented a clear unambiguous purpose.

“Seems so.”

Hux unbuckled himself, fetched his own datapad, and looked up current conditions at their destination. It was autumn in Hegaria’s northern hemisphere. The uplands would soon be coming towards the end of their main tourist season.

“So, what, are we going to play at being tourists? It seems like a better fit than trying to be traders again.”

Ren sat back in the pilot’s seat. “Yes, we will.” 

“And what about passes? You take care of that with your… persuasion, will you?”

“Yes. It won’t be an issue. I have a little bit of business to take care of in Koire Station, and then we will go north and meet up with our contact.”

“You need to start briefing me properly. Who is our contact and who are they in contact with?

“I need to get in touch with the new Jedi. Rey. The scavenger. The one who gave me this.” Ren indicated the scars on his face and shoulder. “It’s time for me to try to ally with her.” 

“And this contact will do that?”

“Not as such.”

“OK. OK.” Hux screwed up his eyes and exhaled. “I always knew, but say it anyway.”

“There is a woman who lives high up in a remote valley. I have been guided to her.”

 _T.A, then_ , thought Hux, as Ren continued. 

“I need to get a message to her through someone in Koire Station. Then she can contact my mother and hopefully my former master and Rey.”

“Your mother. So we’re tapping into a communication network used by the Resistance, in order to deliver ourselves into their hands. How lucky for us that we have been so unsuccessful at rooting them out and cutting them off.”

“I know you are not exactly joking, but there were a good number of people who could have helped me if I had not, over the course of the last five years, killed them myself. Personally.”

“The past can’t be changed. Let us focus on what we can do.”

“If you want to be a part of what I have to do, if you want to come with me all the way, even with what that means for you, then come with me all the way. If not, Hegaria might be as good a place as any for you to try to disappear. A starting point at least.”

 “You have to put an end to Snoke, somehow. I know that. None of us can move forward until he is gone.” Hux didn’t elaborate on what moving forwards with his own plans might entail. It would derail the conversation.

“Yes. It has to be done. I can’t do it on my own. Rey can’t do it on her own. We have to work together. That’s what the Force wants. I don’t have a direct line of communication to Rey – not even through the Force. I don’t blame her for that: she needs to protect herself, now more than ever. He searches for her. And in any case, she still hates me. Rightly so. But the Force will find a way.”

Did the Force have its own little map, Hux wondered.

“I’ll come with you. I need to see him finished. He wanted to destroy me, I want to destroy him. He took my ambition, everything I was, and tore it to pieces. I want security and order. Not what this has turned into.”

“You don’t have to. I think you can help me. I want you to help me. But you don’t have to.”

“I want to. I know what the stakes are.” 

“I have given you too much to deal with, I know.” It was rather late to start worrying about that.

“I deal with things. I cope with things. It’s what I do.” 

“I know. Thank you. It means a great deal to me.”

“Military training programs and large scale engineering projects also a speciality of the house,” Hux said, with a faint smile. “You were very good, you know,” he continued. “With the saber. I’ve never seen you do that close up. I’ve seen a couple of holorecordings but it’s something else entirely in person. Quite magnificent.”

“It’s different without my proper garb. Not as easy. I like to feel hidden.”

“Well, I was impressed.”

There was quiet for a few moments, before Ren spoke up again. “I liked how you shot out the breathing apparatus. Good thinking.”

“Yes, I am capable of basic tactical decision making, thank you for congratulating me on what a fourth-former should be able to deduce.”

“Not everyone picks the best target instead of the easy target. Phasma always drilled her troopers on this, extensively.”

“And who do you think designed the simulations in which those troopers were drilled?”

Ren gritted his teeth and breathed heavily. “I am trying to make you feel better about yourself because you seemed very upset about getting wounded.”

“If you absolutely insist.”

At least they had some objectives now, beyond the ever-present goal of surviving another day. 

The ship dropped out of hyperspace. In the distance a large civilian cruiser coasted towards a planet Hux assumed to be Hegaria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon-appropriate violence, self-reproach and light self-harm


	6. Hegaria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a motel, an omelette shop, a shoe shop, survivor's guilt
> 
> NEW CONTENT NEW CONTENT NEW CONTENT THE NARRATIVE HAS PROGRESSED.
> 
> content notes at end

The ship approached closer to Hegaria, one of its two large moons cresting into visibility over the curve of the planet. Its two person crew observed the view from the forward viewport in silence. For want of anything else to do, Kylo Ren checked short-range autopilot settings in preparation for the descent.

While the ship decelerated through atmo, Hux monitored temperatures; at first with some anxiety, though the new ceramic shields did their job admirably. Through patchy cloud, he could see the land was green with forest and farmland, rising into fells and mountains. There were valleys and, reflecting the sky above, lakes. Could the scenes Kylo had seemingly promised him happen here? There was no way of knowing. Kylo had faith, of course. Which was as helpful as it had always been.

Their flightpath took them into the middle part of a broad valley, to the town of Koire Station. It appeared to be a moderately sized settlement with a small light freight and passenger spaceport attached. 

Traffic control gave them a docking coordinate with barely any fuss. Nothing about the ship’s transponder signature raised any alarms, which was a welcome relief. There was still some uncertainty, though. He hadn’t spotted any security cameras in their docking bay at the Laspen III spaceport, though he hadn’t been looking particularly hard. _Without_ security camera footage, the scene they’d left would look like the aftermath of a shootout between bandits and police. Except for the fact that two of the bandits had rather evidently been dismembered by lightsaber. _Ugh_. He had just been on the point of deciding not to worry about it all. Although fear was, quite rightly, the wages of cowardice. 

Still. The incident might well not have come to the attention of Republican authorities, who in any case probably had bigger fish to fry. It would take some very good detective work to, in a mere few hours, link the disturbance at the spaceport with a nondescript mini-freighter in stock livery with a clean signature.

A passenger cruiser came in to land ahead of them, gliding in slowly on repulsorlifts and lowering first its landing gear and then a set of passenger steps.

Ren coasted the _Firecrest_ neatly to their assigned docking bay in a section of the spaceport reserved for private craft. Engines were switched off and landing gear double-locked.

Five buckles clicked open, and Hux was out of his belts and out of his seat. He stretched his right arm, being wary of doing too much with or to his left shoulder.

“So we’re here.”

“We are.”

“I think I may have overreacted somewhat,” Hux pronounced.

“Mm-hmm.”

“What I perhaps should have said,” and Hux glanced away as he sighed, “is that we won, and we fought well together. And you were brilliant. Of course.”

Ren tilted his head to one side and regarded Hux for a moment. “I know how it feels to be angry with yourself,” he said. “I know it too well.”

Hux allowed himself a small snort of laughter. 

“No. Listen. I’m trying so hard,” Ren said. “I have to keep moving forward to the next thing. All I have pushing me on is the feeling.”

“The feeling?”

“Euphoria. Adrenaline. Faith in the Force. Grandfather’s guidance. I keep going and keep going and I can’t afford for any of it to run out.”

“You’ll be OK. You can do all these things. You can fight and I only worry that I can’t. That you really were right all along.”

Ren stood up, went to him and folded his arms around him, carefully avoiding his wound. “I trusted you, and you didn’t let me down. You fought well. You were brave.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s just us now. Nobody else to judge. If I say you did well, then you did well.”

Hux felt a warmth surround him that was greater than the usual warmth of Ren’s seemingly perpetually heat-generating body.

“You do, somehow, manage to make me feel better. I hope I can do the same for you.”

“You do. Believe me. You are my comfort.”

“That’s nice for you.”

Ren held him closer and he leant his cheek against Ren’s.The jacket Ren was wearing smelled differently to his robes. Hux would never had thought that he had a strong memory of the scent of Ren’s robes. But of course he had. The body underneath, though, that was familiar, taking him back to days where it was impossible even to imagine a situation like this. “You have practical field experience now,” Ren said, more in encouragement than in mockery.

“Ha. I suppose.”

“Would you like me,” Ren whispered against Hux’s ear, “to give you a commendation?” 

“Don’t be bloody silly.”

“I want to. You have merited it.”

“What, are you going to pin an imaginary medal on my chest?”

“For valour in field combat,” Ren said.

Hux rolled his eyes. “You are utterly ridiculous. It’s an embarrassment.”

“See how much easier it is when you let me be nice to you.”

“You aren’t entirely nice, in the fullest sense of the word,” said Hux, thinking of the seven dead bodies they’d left behind, not all of them in one piece.

“And neither are you.”

“No.”

Not much point in standing around considering one’s character. Ren himself had said he had to keep moving forward. So. “Where do we go to find this contact of yours?”

“There’s a shop. I’ll know it when I see it.”

Hux sucked in a deep breath and let it out very slowly.

Kylo shrugged. “We have options,” he said. “We can sleep on the ship – if we feel we don’t want to leave it unattended, or if you are uncertain about venturing into the town.”

“And the alternatives?”

“You and I are more valuable assets than the ship. If people were to come sniffing around, we might want to be tucked away elsewhere.” 

Hux nodded thoughtfully. “Where elsewhere, in town?”

“We can find lodgings in town – points in favour, a nice comfortable bed, points against, might be a little noisy and busy. Don’t want to culture shock you too much.”

“How thoughtful.”

“There is usually a cheap motel near the port, which might represent the best of both worlds, and would have the advantage of being, well, cheap.”

“That would be the best option.”

“Get that datapad of yours out again, Hux. Be a proper tourist.”

The ‘net had some information on Koire Station as a tourist destination and hub. There were some quite pleasant looking hotels in the centre of the town. Quiet and expensive seemed to go together, and several establishments boasted of their closeness to a street of taverns and restaurants. Kylo had been right, damn him. From military starship to small spaceport to bustling tourist town filled with ‘merry revellers’ seemed like a little too much. So, spaceport motels it was. There were two, and one was entirely automated.

“I think we should try the automated lodge. I’d rather deal with droids than people at the moment.”

“You’ll have to deal with people again sooner or later. You were doing fine earlier.”

“Until there was an exchange of live fire.”

“You’ll be OK.”

“I’d simply rather prepare myself before dealing with large crowds of civilians, and have somewhere quiet we can retreat to afterwards. I’m perfectly adaptable, I told you.”

“You don’t have to keep justifying yourself.”

Kylo hauled his duffel bag out of its restraining netting. 

“Get your bag, then.”

“What about the Kanji rifle you got me?”

“You want it?”

“I want to check it over. See if it needs work, which it probably will.”

“You want to do that now?”

“No, of course not.”

Kylo took the rifle and went aft, through the galley and into the living space. Hux followed.

“What are you doing?”

Kylo knelt down, opened a locker and reached inside. He tapped and fiddled with something inside, and pulled out a panel. He manoeuvred the rifle inside, and replaced the panel. “Secret compartment,” he said.

“Any agent worth half their pay would find that, surely.”

“The Leader’s sentinels never found anything.”

“Did they know there was anything to find?”

Kylo made a face. “No. But you have to stop thinking of the worst case scenarios.”

Hux tucked his kit bag onto his good shoulder and followed Kylo off the ship. Nearing an official seated behind a tall desk, he was a little apprehensive. It turned out that a nod and a wink and fifty credits was all the travel pass they needed to produce. He was fairly sure that Ren hadn’t even used the persuasion of the Force.

Laxity couldn’t be encouraged, but when he was its beneficiary he could be quietly grateful.

On the way to the lodge, they passed two humans with similar hair colour to Hux’s own.

“See, you aren't so rare here.”

“Isn’t everything just coming up roses?”

 

* * *

 

The lodge (VistaLodge: Fully Automated For YOUR Convenience) was reassuringly utilitarian. Reception was entirely unmanned, with three freestanding consoles to accept payment and allocate rooms. Ren fed it a small amount of money. Hux looked over his shoulder.

“Shit. It wants ID.”

“I'll put something in, but you have to trust me.”

“Don't use that Czeram chap’s details. We don't want to leave a trail.”

“No, obviously, I’m not a complete idiot. It's something else, something I used to use.”

Ren tapped at the console, and held his breath for a few seconds. The reception console spat out a key chip, and its screen flashed up Room 314.

“OK, let's go up.” 

They took the lift and walked down a corridor painted in beige and dull blue, in the direction of rooms 310-320. Room 314, similarly decorated, was as sparsely furnished as a mid-ranking officer’s cabin, if a little bigger and equipped with a double bed. The bed, to be fair, did look more comfortable than that available to a Tier 4 officer.

Kylo leant his duffel bag against the wall. He sat on the bed. He bounced experimentally. “Not bad, actually.”

“OK, so we need a cover story,” Hux said. “Something we can agree on, something simple.”

Ren pulled a face. “We’re just on vacation. It’s not complicated.” 

“Would people not expect two fit young men of our age to be in active employment or active service?”

“People do take vacations. Especially here in the decadent Republic. It’s an industry.”

“OK, OK. I don’t want to need too much backstory.” 

“Let’s say a young aristocrat and his boyfriend, on a tour of some hidden jewels of the Galaxy. You know the sort of thing.”

“Do I?” Hux smiled wryly. “I suppose it does work for somewhere like this.”

“We’ll be safe from thieves and gangs here. Relatively so.”

“Ugh. This is why we were trying to bring order to the galaxy. All this crime still goes on.”

“Indeed.”

Hux paused for a moment, just enough to make a mistake. “Funny thing is, I am actually a minor aristocrat, of sorts. Technically.”

“Oh, are you?”

“Yep. Nothing too fancy. My mother is the Viscountess Calland. It’s her family title, though it barely means anything these days. My sister will inherit unless she chooses not to, which she might actually do, for reasons related to her husband’s family and an old investment trust and the rules thereof.” Hux stopped himself before launching into a discussion of Admiral Veltin’s family fortune and the idiosyncrasies of its trustees. 

“Oh. Oh, so you might get to be a _viscount_.” Ren’s left eyebrow was aloft.

“What? Why is that funny?”

“No reason really.”

“What?”

“We’ll discuss it after the day’s objectives.”

“Hmm. OK. You said, more to the point, _boyfriend_.”

“Mm. Yes. We’ll be, you know. Affectionate. If that's alright.”

“I think I can do that. We’ll hold hands, that sort of thing?”

It was going to be very odd, to be doing this in public.

“That’s the idea.”

“We have to think about aliases. Pity you burned yours.”

“You can’t be sure. But, no, it’s too much of a risk. So are you sticking with yours? Am I just supposed to call you, what the fuck was it, ‘ _Mullin_ ’? Will you actually answer to it?”

“I’ll try to.”

“What if I were to play my part as particularly affectionate? I could call you by a pet name. Would you respond to that… _sweetheart_?”

Oh, he would. He would.

“Yes. Yes, actually, that would be,” he looked away and blushed slightly, “nice.” 

“Glad you like it. I could use my old name. The first part, anyway.”

“Your old name?”

“Try it. Go on.”

Hux paused, mouth open, uncertain. “I don’t know if I can. It seems odd.” He narrowed his brows. “Forbidden, still.”

“You know it, but you are afraid to speak it. You know my lineage. Say my name. Say it.”

“I can’t. It was always on pain of death. It still feels wrong. I can’t.” 

“Please. It’s OK, sweetheart. I want you to. It’s OK.”

Hux took the forbidden step. “Ben,” he said, fearing consequences that he knew logically and intellectually could no longer apply.

“There, see?” Ren tried to sound upbeat, but his eyes betrayed him.

“Is it really OK?”

“Yes. Yes, it is. It’s a common name. Won’t attract too much attention.”

“I meant, is it OK _for you_?”

“Yes. Come here.”

Hux sat on the bed beside him. It was rather comfortable, he noted, as the sound of his own heartbeat surprised him.

“Try again, now.” Ren’s hand covered his. It felt more like the scene of a first kiss than two conspirators arranging a cover story.

“Ben. My dear, my sweet… I’m no good at pet names, they always seem so stilted although I am actually exceedingly fond of you despite some of the things that happened before.” He was babbling. It was ridiculous.

Ren gathered him in his arms and squeezed. “Yes. It is alright. It’s quite alright. Very much so.” His voice thickened with emotion.

“Good. That’s good.” 

Ren squeezed him tighter. 

“Ow! Fuck, you’re on my wound!”

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” 

Ren sniffed, awkwardly. 

“Ren? Are you crying?”

“No. Maybe a little. Sorry.”

“We’ve had quite a day. And… well. Quite a few days.”

“Are you sure you’re alright for all this?”

“Swanning round a resort town like a spoilt brat?  I can probably manage.” 

“You don’t like all this  upheaval, I know. But you can do it. There was a time I’d never have thought you capable of any of this.”

“Thank you,” Hux said, curtly.

“I thought you were dull and stupid.” Ren laughed gently, at his own nerve. “You still can be, a little.”

“Thank you.”

“But only when you… when you don't know the way to see it properly. Your ways of seeing can be so rigid,” Ren said.

Hux sighed. “I suppose.” It was all too abstract.

“Do you feel trapped?”

“No. Why should I?

“Not only trapped in your way of thinking. Trapped here with me.”

“I don't think so. No. It’s not… not like that.”

 

* * *

 

“What’s local time?”

Hux checked his chronometer. “1310h. Feels a hell of a lot later.” He wondered why Ren couldn’t be bothered to check his. Perhaps he felt that Hux needed some small administrative tasks to do, to keep him busy and feeling useful. Patronising. But accurate, unfortunately.

“We should head into town.”

“Good. I prefer when we keep busy. Got to try to stay awake. I should maybe take something for time lag,” Hux said, digging for his med pack. “Do you want one?”

“I shouldn’t have them. They can interfere with my abilities. You shouldn’t really take them either. They screw with your head.”

“Sometimes needs must.”

“Like when?”

“When schedules are getting tight and one needs to stay awake just to get things done, because not getting things done is not a bloody option, Kylo. I trust the army doctors. They know what they’re doing.”

Kylo laughed, bitterly.

“OK, fine. Whatever. I’ll leave it until I feel tired.”

“Are you hungry? It is lunchtime here.”

“It’s been a few hours since we ate. Should have something, I suppose. Should we stop somewhere on the way?”

“You tell me. Do you think we should eat a protein portion from your kit bag, or do you think we should save them until we’re somewhere we might not have access to numerous eating establishments? You’re the strategist, Hux, you tell me.”

“Oh, alright.”

“Keep it up and you might get commended for Engagement With Civilians At Meal Times.”

Hux smiled and blushed. He was enjoying Ren’s teasing a lot more than he thought he should.

Between them, they patched up the blast hole in Hux’s shirt with the sewing kit from his kit bag. He was very pleased to have proven the merit of being prepared. Ren produced a jacket for Hux to wear to cover the patch and keep him warm in the cool climate. It was a little too big, but that could look artful, possibly.

They stepped out of the lodge, key chip in Ren’s pocket, hand in hand. It was, Hux realised, the first time in several years that he had been taken out to lunch or dinner by someone as a date of any description, if that’s indeed what this was.

He adjusted his scarf to keep out the breeze. Ren squeezed his hand. He could do this.

They found a place still serving lunch. It was billed as an omelette shop, and Hux was sceptical. Navy cooks made a passable flat round yellow thing at breakfast in the senior officers’ mess, but he didn’t see how one could build a whole restaurant business around it. He had once had, he thought, a very good egg pancake at a diplomatic brunch, in his youth. The outcome of that meeting had been influenced more by the bluntness of Brendol Hux’s rhetoric and the First Order battleship weighing heavy in the sky than by anyone’s opinions on the quality of the brunch, however.

Inside, a few tables were occupied. They looked at the menu. It was, rather ostentatiously, Hux thought, written in four different languages, only two of which he recognised. The page in Basic promised traditional Hegarian potato omelette, made with eggs claimed to be from the restaurant’s own hens, in a paragraph that descended into the most sententious claptrap about the diet, lifestyle and happiness of the birds. A prince of Corellia or Naboo could surely only dare to dream of the luxury and carefree exuberance lived by these egg-layers. He’d heard a strange burbling clucking sound while they’d been stood on the pavement sizing the place up, and he put two and two together and realised that must be the sound that hens made. It was rather funny.

At the next table, a couple, one human and one near-human, were discussing their plans. 

“Let’s do the riverside trail tomorrow. While the weather is still dry.”

“And the distillery, or shall we leave that to a wet day?”

“We could leave it till the end. Are you taking bottles back for your Erivin?”

“Of course. He doesn’t approve of his mother going on vacation in Times Like These, but you bet your life he still wants treats bringing back!” 

The ladies both roared with laughter. How blessed they were, to be foot loose and fancy free in Times Like These.

A large wheel of potato omelette arrived, already cut into wedges. Whole, he thought, it would have been suitable for patching a shot-hole in a surface vehicle. He cut a piece from the side of a wedge. It was plain, but hot and palatable and not as weighty as appearances suggested. He followed Ren’s lead and spooned a little of one of the provided sauces onto it. This, it turned out, was a mistake. While he gulped down half a glass of water, Ren called the waitress over and asked for milk.

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“It’s not that hot. On a scale of one to five it barely merits a three. “ 

 

* * *

 

Walking into the centre of Koire Station was irksome, far more than the spaceport on Laspen III had been.

Koire Station was full of tourists, and tourists were, to a life form, clueless bloody amateurs. A commercial spaceport was full of people who were getting from A to B with some purpose, if not with military bearing. The lifeforms here were meandering, almost free-floating.

This was why you needed a system. This was why you needed education and order and protocol. Walk slow on the right and fast on the left would be a start.

Hux tugged on Ren’s hand. “Can these people not get out of the way?”

“Relax, sweetheart,” Ren said, obviously getting into his part.

Shops and food outlets lined the street on one side. On the other, the side where they were walking, wooden benches backed on to an area of open ground. Ren was keeping an eye on the opposite side of the street, looking for the place where he would supposedly meet some sort of contact.

“This is it,” Ren said. He nodded across at a shop.

“Which one?”

“The shoe and outdoor goods shop.”

“Do we both go in?”

“Yes. We can get you some new boots. Suitable for the terrain where we’ll be going.”

Hux was relieved that he wouldn’t have to stay outside on his own. He felt a stab of shame at that. A First Order soldier, afraid of being left on his own on a busy shopping street. But to tell himself the truth, he wasn’t used to being on his own in unfamiliar surroundings. There was always somewhere to be, some briefing to attend, some session to supervise, and always around people who were familiar if only by virtue of their uniforms.

And that was without touching on the fact that he was a wanted man.

He took a few breaths to regulate himself, and followed Ren across the street and into the shop.

“Good morning,” Ren called out, in an unnaturally jolly tone. Or perhaps it wouldn’t have sounded unnatural coming from most people.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” smiled the woman behind the counter. “Is there anything in particular I can help you with today?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact there is,” Ren said, his tone that of a laid back Old Republican aristocrat. “Walking boots, for him.”

“Of course. Step this way, sirs.”

“I’ve swept him off on a surprise vacation, and didn’t give him enough clues to allow him to pack the right things.” The shop assistant nodded.

“And he’s still rocking military-chic.”

“Oh, I see. No good for trekking. Let’s see what I can get you sorted out with. What size do you take?”

“44”

“Very good. I’ll see what we have in stock. I’ll look for something that doesn’t need too much breaking in, as you’ll be wearing them almost straight away, yes?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Kylo followed the shop assistant a couple of metres and stopped her, saying something to her that Hux didn’t quite catch. She replied hurriedly, and Hux realised that he wasn’t catching the words because they weren’t speaking Galactic Basic.

The shop assistant returned, three large shoe boxes balanced between her arms and chin. She set them down on the floor and opened the top one. With practised hands she removed a wedge of packing material from inside each boot, and presented the boots to Hux.

Hux took his own boots off. From the corner of his eye he spotted the shop assistant slipping something to Ren. A chip card of some sort, he was pretty sure.

“I won’t be long, my sweet.” He reached into his pocket and handed Hux a good grab of credit chips. “The boots are my treat. And get yourself any socks you like, any waterproof jacket if you need.”

He left him there. To make small talk. With a shop lady.  

Hux could hear two sets of footsteps going up stairs.

“How are those?”

“Not bad lengthwise, but I feel my foot moving around in the shoe a little.”

The woman palpated Hux’s feet through the boot. “Hmm. You may need something narrower. Let’s try lacing them as tight as they’ll go.”

He tried it. Too tight across the top of the instep and still loose further down.

“Let’s pop your feet in our scanner, then I’ll know for sure what should fit you.” Hux had wondered if this sort of place had a scanner, or if they liked to do everything the old fashioned way for some spurious reason. A scanned and bespoke stitched shoe would be ideal.

The baseplate of the store’s scanner was rather cold.

“Oh, you do have a narrow foot, sir, and a high instep. But I’m sure we’ll have something for you.” The scanner’s laser strobed over Hux’s bare, cold feet. “We do have a bespoke droid-machined service,” the assistant said, and Hux wondered why she hadn’t damn well said so before, until she carried on, “but the turnaround is three to four business days.”

“So you don’t have the fabrication droids here in the shop?”

“No, I’m sorry to say, sir. We still send away to the big city for those sorts of things.”

He tried to hold back his contempt. “Well. I suppose…”

“We like our way of life, sir. A slower pace.”

How anyone could possibly voluntarily submit themselves to lead times and turnaround times that were any longer than necessary was utterly incomprehensible. “Do you email the measurements or send them by homing bird?” 

“Sounds like you need to relax and unwind, sir. And you’ve come to the right place. Some mountain air will do you a power of good.”

“Yes. I do think it will.”

She unboxed another pair of boots. “Try these.”

They were definitely better.

“Walk around in them. Do you feel any pinching at all above the ankle?”

“No, none at all.”

“Good, good. These are rated highly for comfort, and customers do tell us that they can be work straightaway without a breaking in phase, but if you did feel any pinching, now would be the time to say.”

The boots were very good. 

“I see your socks are good quality, but it’s always worth having another pair,” the shop assistant said, keen to upsell.

“It is indeed.”

She showed him a pair of trekking socks.“These are a nerf under-wool and synthetic blend, seamless, very comfortable.”

“Oh they feel rather good. I think I’ll take a pair. And these are very nice,” Hux said, homing in on the best socks in the shop.

“Those are wonderful. I have a pair myself for the winter months. You will never have cold feet again. Worth the price tag, in my opinion.”

“Hmm. He did say these things were his treat.”

They went to the counter to pay.

On the counter stood a holoimage of a man and a woman, surrounded by dried flowers, and another holoimage of a middle-aged Togruta gentleman with a set of prayer beads draped over the frame. The assistant saw Hux looking.

“It’s always going to be like this from now on, at this time in the standard calendar. Thinking of those we’ve lost.”

“I suppose it is.” He had to be vague until he could find his feet in the conversation. He didn’t want her to say it, to be specific, but she probably was going to.

“That’s my sister and her husband. Hosnian III, they were on. She was an account clerk. For a transport business. He worked in a place making the repulsor circuits they put in hover boots for gravball players. Hover boots. For gravball! You have to wonder, what they have against people who just go to work and do their jobs. But here we are.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” She noticed his face. “Oh, I am sorry. I get hardened to it sometimes. Did you lose someone?”

“Yes. I did.” How was he going to talk about this. But he had lost people. Thousands of them. “Work colleagues.” He had to lie and he had to lie fast and he also had to tell enough of the truth. “I’m in engineering,” he said. “Lost some really good people actually. I was going to give some members of my team a promotion, but, well, that wasn’t to be.” He remembered the implosion. Death as sure as by any other means. “I wasn’t there. Lucky.”

“Oh, that’s tough. Survivor’s guilt, they call it, don’t they?”

“I don’t know if it’s guilt. Discomfort, perhaps.”

She nodded. “I hope your vacation gives you a little space to…you know. Whatever you need time and space for.”

“That’s why we’ve come away really. My boyfriend organised it all. Was a bit of a surprise for me – he just came and swept me away. We’ve been touring around a little, but this is where I really wanted to come.”

“You’ll have the peace and quiet at the end of the season, but you may not be so lucky with the weather.” She made a face. “We have peace here. War and occupation in the rest of the galaxy, but peace here. Sometimes I think someone in the First Order must like us.”

“Ha. Yes. Maybe so.”

Hux had himself made sure that Hegaria was on the schedule D list of planets. To be gently brought into the fold by negotiation once the Order’s victory was assured. 

He handed over some credits.

“He has treated you nicely.”

Hux smiled. “Yes. He’s been so good to me.”

“Well, you enjoy yourselves.”

Ren came through from the back area of the building and eased himself through racks of clothing to the front desk, avoiding the other customer in the shop.

“Are we alright?”

"Fine. We’re fine."

"You?”

Ren’s face glowed. He seemed energised. No doubt he would soon have something to say about the Living Force. “Yes. All good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> major character: reference to past reliance (though not dependence) on prescribed medication  
> minor, original character: discussion of the anniversary of a loved one's death (in a terrorist atrocity) (with, unknowingly, the perpetrator of that atrocity)


	7. Simulation and Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretence is seductive, but true declarations are terrifying.

Back at the motel, Hux wasn’t ready to let go of the assumed identity. Playing at being an established couple had been more comfortable than he had been expecting. This Ren, who held hands and bought him things, was too lovely to let go of.

“Can we keep on with the pretence? Just for a little while?”

“Pretence?”

“This. The holding hands and being sweet with each other. Just for a bit, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, of course.” Ren’s eyes shone. “Come here, let me kiss you.” Hux stepped across the worn-thin carpet, into Ren’s embrace. His hands were warm on Hux’s cheek and his kiss was soft and tender. “Like this?”

“Yes, like that.”

He’d always been capable of this. He must have been.

“Never had the chance for this sort of thing. Never the time or opportunity. You neither, I suppose.”

“Me neither.”

“Last time I had a boyfriend, as such, I was still a Major. And it wasn’t much, then.”

He felt Ren’s chest move with a sudden inhalation, as if he were about to say something. But no new words came. 

“I had a few liaisons,” Hux continued. “Useful liaisons. Expedient. But not, you know.”

“Did they make a fuss of you, these liaisons? Buy you treats?”

“Not like you. You’ve been so good to me today, darling,” he said, pretending extravagantly. 

“So. Let’s see what I bought for you.” Ren fetched the lax-weave shopping bag and took the goods from it. He carefully opened the boot box and took out a boot, turning it over in his hands to inspect it. “Good quality,” he said. “You know what you like.”

“Of course I do.”

Ren turned his attention to the socks. “Good and durable,” he said, weighing up the thick knit trekking socks. “Oh,” he said, and the super-soft knit of the best socks in the shop yielded to his fingers. “Only the best for you, hey? Don’t you want to find out how soft they are?”

“I’ll try them on,” Hux said, just suppressing a grin. He sat on the edge of the bed and wiggled his boots from his feet. This was lovely. This whole world that he’d never seen.

The new socks were soft, and as the saleswoman had promised, so wonderfully warm. Ren cradled one of his feet in those broad hands, and rubbed gently at his ankle bone, looking down with tenderness. 

“Thank you. Thank you, Ben.”

“I’m…” Kylo’s head dipped and his hair fell in front of his face. “I’m glad you like them.” He suddenly broke away. “This is… I have a lot to think about.”

“Is it too much? I'm sorry. We'll stop.” He’d known perfectly well it would be too much when he said it.

“No. It's my tasks. My mission. I have to go back and make contact again. It won't be easy.”

“You only have to go to the same place, surely?”

“Not difficult like that. Please try not to be obtuse. Difficult because of what I have to ask for.”

“Oh. Well. I doubt I can be much help to you there.”

“I need to think some more.”

Hux stood up from the bed. “You do your thinking.” He stepped into the refresher, more to get out of Ren’s way than for anything else. He looked at himself in the mirror. Tired. Feeling tired and looking it. His eyes had somehow grown small bags. He remembered putting cold compresses on them, in the days before Starkiller was approaching its scheduled test fire.

_Scheduled_. Ha.

He could have half a Peredrex to keep him going. Or perhaps he should be rationing them. Who fucking knew? He yawned and blinked, and splashed cold water on his face. He was itching, physically and metaphorically, to get rid of the two days of beard growth on his face. But he knew the rationale for being unshaven was sound.  And he knew Ren liked it for some reason. He might as well go along with Ren’s silly little preferences at this point.

He took a piss. Might as well. He stared disapprovingly at some discolouration around the edges of the plasteel wall.

While washing his hands with the pleasantly scented liquid soap provided by the motel, he thought he could half-hear voices. He was more tired than he'd thought, then. Drying his hands, he could definitely hear a voice: Ren, muttering softly. Some ludicrous mystic incantation, perhaps. No. Not that. It was a quiet conversation. But only one half of the conversation.

Hux silently opened the fresher door a crack, and put his eye to the gap.  

Ren was talking, to someone who was clearly not there. His facial expressions and gestures were aimed at a piece of air some two meters from the bed.

 

_“I know I need to.”_

_“I will.”_

_“Have I left it too late? Even this?”_

_“I feel it, but what if he doesn’t accept it?”_

_“Always. I have faith.”_

 

Hux stepped back into the bedroom and stood, hands clasped behind his back, in something very close to correct parade rest. It still seemed the best way to confront a problem.

“What were you saying? Were you talking to… the ghost?”

“I was.”

“What about?”

“A little of everything. You. In passing.”

“Oh.”

“He was talking about how much he loved his wife.”

“Oh.”

“She was a queen, you know.”

“I know. She was both a help and a hindrance to the founding of the Empire.”

“No. Don’t parrot your history lessons at me. Please. Not now.”

“I’m sorry. I expect your find it… ah, never mind.”

“He loved her. They took some happiness together. And the Emperor lied.” Ren was clearly attempting to be stoic, but a rage bubbled beneath the surface, seemingly directed at the Emperor, of all people.

“Was it worth it?”

“Was what worth it?”

“Any of it! However long they had together.”

“Of course it was! It should have been longer, but for the Emperor’s sabotage.”

“Is this relevant to…”

“Of course it’s relevant! He doesn’t want me to miss my chances.”

Hux was shocked to hear a nominally right-thinking person call the Emperor himself as a saboteur and villain, especially if they were at the same time hanging on the every word of Lord Vader. But, really, the Empire was an idea, not a man. Sheev Palpatine was a vastly gifted and skilled politician but no person was without flaws, and he had, from Kylo’s evidence, gravely wounded Lord Vader in such a way that, even in death, Vader would not forgive. Hux could no longer tolerate such cruel actions from Snoke towards Kylo and himself. He would, then, even as a good Imperial, allow his view of Palpatine to be likewise coloured.

“I have to keep going,” Kylo said. “That’s what he wants. To push, to be brave.”

“Brave. We’re coward traitors. Both of us.”

“No. We are adventurers.”

“Are we going to survive this? Together?”

Ren gently squeezed Hux’s forearm. “We keep going. Everything comes together. By the grace of the Force. It’ll be OK.”

“I was never afraid before.”

“I know.”

Hux blinked his eyes tight shut, and exhaled. “I’m so tired. Feel like I’ve done three shifts on the go.”

“It is more action that you usually get.”

“I need either sleep, or a stim. Very strong caf might do it. Sun hasn’t even bloody set.”

“You know my thoughts on the stims.”

Well, that would seem to put paid to the half a 200mg Peredrex: at least, if he didn’t want to have a row with Ren about it. And to be quite honest, he could do without that. Too tired, you see. Too tired to do anything about being tired.

Current research, as propagated through the First Order field manual, recommended adjusting to new sleep patterns as soon as possible to mitigate the effects of time lag when going planetside or making a large change to shift pattern. Soldiers and officers had drills to maintain alertness when extending waking hours. 

Current research on the effects of fatigue also recommended that one should not allow oneself to get excessively tired and risk impairing judgement. That hadn’t always been possible, with pressure of management and leadership, but it was now. So he could maybe sleep. 

He felt himself blinking now. Ren noticed it too. “Sleep,” Ren said. “I’ll get in with you. I can nap or I can read a book on your datapad.” He visibly checked himself. “I mean to say, if I _may_ read a book on your datapad.”

Hux yawned. “Do I have anything you want to read? Personal documents are locked down so don’t even think about it by the way.”

“I could read a chapter of your Thrawn art history. Or one of those lurid unofficial biographies of great imperials.”

“You won’t find anything like that on there. Not without a pass key you won’t, anyway.”

In his kit bag, not so carefully packed as they might have been, were his sleep clothes and wash bag.

“Take a quick shower,” Ren said. The scent of battle will be on you, under your clothes. You won’t be used to it.”

“The scent of battle? I mean, really, _battle_? And besides, we showered this morning. Albeit not with water.”

“I understand more about that side of things than you do. Adrenaline. Fear. You aren’t used to it. The resilience your troopers build up in their training, this is part of it. You’ll sleep better clean of the scent of battle.” Ren did seem quite serious. “I’ll do the same,” he said.

Very well. Clothes off and folded, and back to the fresher he went. The water ran warm almost straight away, and the pleasantly scented liquid soap would do. He’d save his own supplies. Ren followed him in, and stood behind him, not touching him.

“Is this some sort of overture to something?”

“No, no. Merely an efficient use of resources.”

Behind him, Ren washed, and then helped him with his back. The attention was welcome. He was, under the hot water, definitely feeling more of the relaxed sort of tired now.

Toweled, and with an application of three parts standard foot cream to one part nourishing oil (sourced through the usual unofficial channels) made to his feet, knees and elbows, he put on sleep clothes, pulled the viewshade down, and got in between the clean white washed-soft sheets. Ren had, it turned out, been correct about the value of being freshly washed and clean scented. He took a painkiller for his wound, set his chrono alarm for 0600 local time, just in case he were to sleep through, and lay on his good side. Ren idly stroked his back. “I’ll change your dressing for you in the morning,” he said.

Sleep came promptly. While he slept, Hux had muddled dreams of Ren sat at a conference table discussing an important mission with a group of confidants, some in military uniform, others in Jedi robes.

 

* * *

 

He awoke in near darkness. Bluish moonlight came through a gap in the viewshade. He picked up his datapad from the side of the bed, and searched for something to read.

A body shifted and stirred beside him. “You awake then?”

“Yep.”

Ren cuddled up against him and wrapped an arm around his waist. It was quite pleasant. “I sort of was, too. Are you reading or working?”

“I was reading.” He put the datapad down. 

Ren sat up a little more. “Hux,” he said, raising himself up to lay his head on Hux’s chest. He gestured vaguely at the view shade and it opened a little to let in more moonlight.

“Comfortable?” Hux asked. Unlike Ren’s, his chest did not make a good pillow; of that he was certain.

“Yes. You?”

“Yep.”

“Say my name again,” Ren said, serious and determined for whatever this time of night was. “I want to hear it. From you.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

This would be the third time. Perhaps it would be lucky.

“Ben,” he said, softly, with his fingers tucked into Ren’s hair.

“That’s me. That’s me.” Hux felt him swallow. “My name _is_ Ben Organa Solo, and it always has been,” then he took a breath and held it for a second before adding, “and I love you.” 

The room was so quiet and so still. Ben Organa Solo held Dion Hux close and told him the truth again. “I love you. I love you and we’re going to be OK. We’ve come this far. Can you love me?”

What a question. “Yes. Of course I can. I don’t know how I can do anything else.” Hux looked down at him, at the angles of his face caught in the moonlight. “This is really you, now, isn’t it? As well as everything else you are.” He shivered as Kylo, Ben, _the man he loved_ , reached up and gently thumbed his unshaven cheek. 

“This is really me. And you, _this_ you right here, with your soft hair and your rough face, this is really you.”

Hux made a tiny noise of amusement. “I suppose it is.” He smiled, with what had to be _tenderness_ , and said what he no longer wanted to avoid saying. “I love you. I do. I think I’d been meaning to say so.” The thought had indeed been pressing on his chest from the inside.

“I’ve been trying to say it since I stepped through your door. I’m…it’s as I said, I’m the same man I have always been. Just me, I think. You know I don’t belong to him any more.”

“You did say that. The same man you’ve always been.” Hux bit his lip. “I asked you, and that’s what you told me. I knew it wasn’t a complete answer.”

“It was the best answer I had. It’s not easy, you know. But I’m trying.”

“I know. Well. I _think_ I do. So. Am I to keep calling you Ben, now?”

“Yes. You can call me what you like, but, yes, that would be… yes.”

“Of course. Ben. My darling.” Tears washed at Hux’s eyes, and he swallowed them. Salt, hot, and aching. He hadn’t realised how much he needed this, until he had it. Someone to love. Someone to care about and look after. “Shit. This is… I don’t want to have to pretend any more.”

“No. We don’t have to. This is real now. This is real.”

It was real. Terrifying.

“I’ve loved you for quite some time, I’ve come to realise.”

“The same. I didn’t mean to fall in love with you. I think I would have always been, I suppose, infatuated with you, to some extent. Cold and beautiful and off-putting as you were.” 

Hux laughed at that. 

“We hated each other, that was true, but something happened, didn’t it? Maybe as soon as you took me into your bed. The connection didn't come from nowhere.”

“I wanted to give you a good time, you know,” Hux said. “I said back at the time I meant to do it properly.”

“And you did. But I wouldn’t have kept coming back if we weren’t fighting each other, hating each other. Grandfather helped me see that, later. How it worked. He wants me to be happy.”

“Well, I don’t hate you any more.”

“And I don’t hate you. We’re together now, by the grace of the Living Force, and it feels so right. Doesn’t it?”

Hux laced their fingers together and pressed kisses along Ben’s knuckles. “So right.” 

“Can I tell you something I like?”

Hux gave his assent.

“I like that you call me _darling_. It’s nice. It’s what I heard you say, in my mind. While I was away.”

It was time to be honest. “I did say it. Maybe not out loud, I’m not sure. When we were together. You were asleep, in any case.” He took a deep breath and carried on. “You had woken up with a nightmare. Some terror, something he had done, I think. I wasn’t entirely ready to deal with it, but I stroked your hair and told you it was safe to go back to sleep. Then, I was only pretending…” and his tears pricked at his eyes as he spoke, admitting his secret, “… imagining what it would be like to care about you, and I said, ‘hush darling, it’s alright darling.’ My cover story is that I was only pretending, but I wasn’t, was I? It hurt, here.” He placed his hand on his upper chest. “It still does.”

Ben covered Hux’s hand with his own. “Oh. Now I understand.”

“That’s why I handled things so badly the next day. I panicked, rather, and reacted quite badly. I’m sorry. I’m a mess. You know that now.”

“And I took it from there.”

“We were very foolish. Both of us.” He dabbed at the corner of his eye.

Ben sat up, his face singular and strange in the moonlight. “Say it again.”

“Ben. I love you.” One unruly tear escaped onto his cheek. “Shit. Is this what it’s like?”

“I think it is.” The tear was gently kissed away. “Do you feel the Living Force now?”

“I don’t know. How could I know? But I shall say yes. I do feel something. I love you; it hurts; I feel happy, and alive. Warm. Safe, even.”

“That’s it. You do feel it. We shall keep each other safe.”

“I hope we can,” he said. “Hold me. Hold me close. I still think I shouldn't want this, but…” He nestled gladly against the warm body of the man he loved. This was unfamiliar but deeply welcoming ground, a territory that hadn’t appeared on any of his plans and charts.

“I shan’t let you go. Not now.”

“You came back for me. It's all true, isn’t it?”

“All true.”

“So this is who you’ve been – who you are now? I mean to say, this is why you were different, when you came back? Why we’re like this, now?”

“Yes, it is. But it always has been. Although, yes, _different_. Don’t ask me who I am. I don’t know how to answer, not in any way that would satisfy you.”

“OK. None of that makes sense: you do realise that, don’t you?”

“I’m making it up as I go along. I told you that.”

“Yes. You did. I have more of an idea of what you mean by that, now.” He squeezed Ben’s hand and offered him a wry smile. “We are two poor little broken toys, aren’t we? But we make the most of things, no? Efficient and pragmatic, is what we shall be.”

“Efficient and pragmatic? Oh do tell me more.”

“I think the most efficient and pragmatic course of action available to me would be to love you. To continue. To make the most of this.”

“You're happy. I can feel it.”

The Force was not deceiving him. 

They lay there for a while, holding on to one another. 

Hux trailed his fingertips over Ben’s side and onto his thigh. “Do you want to…”

“I do. I almost always do, a little bit.”

“Do we have to be all gentle and meaningful, now? Does it have to be different?”

“It already is. Hux. Did you not notice?”

“Of course I did.”

Ben kissed him, long and tender and warm. “You liked it.”

“Of course,” Hux whispered. “Of course I did.”

“I liked it,” Ben said, his breath hot. He tucked his thumbs into the waistband of Hux’s sleep pants, and Hux lifted his hips to have them pulled off him. 

He sat up to take his shirt off, accepting some help to take it over his wounded shoulder. He lay back again and nudged his legs up over Ben’s, pulling him closer in. His hands framed Ben’s waist and slid over his back, feeling the heat under his skin more than the scars on it. Ben’s hair hung around his face as he kissed at him.

It was different now and he knew it. And it had been different that first night, with Ren saying his name over and over, with the feeling that he was giving him something he truly needed, that it meant something.

“You’re mine, aren’t you?” he asked, an urgent whisper at Ben’s ear.

“Yes. Yes.”

“Then I’m yours.” This was more than he had ever given anyone. Terrifying, impossible, and he felt desperately compelled to give it. Because this is what you did when you were… doing this. Like this.

It was Ben kissing at his face, sucking at his neck behind his ear, making him dirty with kisses, making him breathless. It was Ben, eager yet careful, making him slick and wet and ready. It was Ben, eyes closed in bliss and concentration, filling him: filling him up with a deep pulsing pleasure and a heat that soaked through his skin and burned over his thighs and up his back. He clutched on with his arms and his legs, pulling him in and in and in.

It didn’t matter what his Ben, his Ren, called himself, as long as it was like this.

“Don’t let me go,” Hux whispered. “If I’m yours, then I’m yours.”

 “Mine.”

Through all the tenderness, he was being beautifully, splendidly fucked. He panted, swallowed a moan and let another slip out un-muted. A hand reached in and touched him, bringing him closer to the edge, manipulating him with the same warm strong fingers that manipulated reality itself, taking him to where all the sensations were too intense and he could feel the final barrier in front of him and sense the drop on the other side. He crashed through it with a groan, feeling himself almost weightless for a second, burying his face in Ben’s hair, breathing heavily, waiting for him to come. He greeted the quickening and sudden tensing of Ben’s body with joy and great pride.

 

* * *

 

 

Standing beside him in the fresher, washing himself off, Hux felt almost shy, as if he had suddenly proven to be made of fragile stuff. Back in the days before, he always felt that even in the immediate aftermath, they’d put themselves back together a little, and so the fresher would be crowded only with the proud and confident bodies of two men who had just fucked and who were probably going to go to sleep in a pleasant mood. This, though was a new scenario, at once delightful and terrifying. His layers had been peeled away. And so had Ren’s – to an unimaginable extent. He couldn’t stop glancing at him. Trying to suppress the little smiles on his face.

_I love him. I can’t keep this weakness hidden any more. I shall forget what to call him. He’ll always be my Ren. My knight._

They lay in the blissful body warmth of afterwards.

“What’s funny is that I do actually outrank you.”

“Oh. Here we go.”

“My mother is a princess. Twice over. Which makes me a prince. Twice over.”

“Oh, _please_. Of course you’re not.”

“Well, first of all, consider Naboo.” Hux rolled his eyes. “My grandmother was a Queen and a daughter of House Naberrie, one of the princely families.”

“You can’t think I don’t know they elected their kings and queens. This is foolish. And I’m not sure the mere fact of coming from a princely family makes you an actual prince.”

“Hair-splitting. And as noble families go, Naberrie beats Calland by quite some margin.”

“I have never claimed otherwise,” Hux said, with a cross blush.

“My mother, as you perfectly well know, was adopted by the royal family of Alderaan; making me a prince of Alderaan, too. Or at least, the asteroid field where Alderaan used to be. Hux, you know your protocol, you would know if when a territory is destroyed, the title can remain.”

“It doesn’t,” Hux said crisply. “In fact. So that makes you ’not quite a prince’, twice over.”

“And you are actually potentially maybe going to inherit a title. I don’t want you to feel bad about the few thousand square kilometres of rolling farmland that you _may_ one day be legally entitled to lord it over, but I was just saying, I do actually outrank you by noble house, too.” Ren giggled; still a most incongruous sound. “I don’t really care, though. But you started it.”

“When did I?”

“Yesterday. You had a sudden attack of fake modesty about your aristocratic roots. I wasn’t applying the slightest bit of pressure you know.” 

“Oh, fine. Fine.”

“You have passed counter-interrogation training, haven’t you? I’m sure I saw you had, in your files.”

“If you’ve seen my files, you know what they say. Of course I ruddy well have. I wouldn’t talk if it were an actual scenario.”

“But you keep saying things to me.”

“I’m susceptible to you. And not your damned Force-doings. Just you. Oh hell, I really am beyond help.”

“No, nowhere is beyond. And wherever you are, I am too.”

“My noble prince,” Hux said, with a smirk and an exaggerated flutter of his eyelashes.

Ren raised his eyebrows and affected the most haughtily royal demeanour, making Hux twitch with glee. “Oh, so you’ve decided I am a prince after all, now you’ve realised it makes you look good by association?”

“Is that so wrong? If this were a romantic tale, they’d say we were eloping.”

“Not inaccurate.”

“You had me like a rough space pirate, do I get you like a noble and elegant Naboo prince?”

“What do you think? Perhaps you just did.”

Hux fingered the wash softened motel room sheets. “I would expect silk sheets or super fine linen at the very least.”

Ren closed the viewshade again, and Hux put in another shift of sleep.

 

* * *

 

Hux woke in the soft sheets and eyed the glowing display of a chrono. 0547.

In the middle of the night, or whenever it was, in a secret time between two sleeps, things had happened. Words had been said. And he had called him by a different name as they had… had a particularly tender and heartfelt fuck.

He turned to look at him. Eyes closed, breathing softly, a little puddle of drool under the corner of his mouth.

“Hello.”

Ren made a quiet grunt and opened his eyes. “Am awake,” he mumbled.

Hux found his sleep clothes bundled up at the bottom of the bed. He put them on again, got out of bed and cancelled his alarm. He wandered across the room, to a built in hot drink dispenser. “How might one rate this little machine?” 

“No idea. You want me to sense its potential with the Force, or you want to put a cup under it and push the button marked tea?”

Hux put a cup under the machine’s spout and pushed the button marked tea. 

“It says we need to purchase credits from the console in the foyer.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Ren got out of the bed and stalked naked to where Hux stood. “Bandits. This is how they get you. Cheap rooms but pay up if you want a cup of caf in the morning. At least the soap and towels were free.” He waved a hand at the machine, called it a fucker, and stood back. Hux felt that fizzing, bubbling glee again.

The display no longer showing the offending message, he pressed the button, and the spout delivered. The resulting liquid was hot, tea-like, and of an acceptable basic everyday standard. Slight synth-note. Lacking in the attack and aftertaste of good leaves. Sort of thing non-commissioned officers drained by the bucketful. He put the cup under the spout again for a second one.

He ought to get dressed. He sniffed at his shirt and had to conclude that Ren had been right. There was something about it that set his blood up. “There’s a sonic setting in the shower. I’m going to put these in for five minutes.” He gathered shirts, undershirts and underwear, and set about the planning and construction of a structure to support them in the shower, based on clothes hangers and a small ration of duct tape from his kit bag.

Ren poked his head around the door. “A veritable Coruscanti skyscraper,” he said.

After five minutes of sonic, the Coruscanti skyscraper was mainly intact, and the clothes smelled better.

Once dressed, Hux’s thoughts turned again to the Kanji blaster rifle hidden on their ship, and the prospect of giving it some mechanical attention. 

“I didn’t get much of a look at that blaster rifle. It seemed well powered. Can’t imagine it’s tip-top for accuracy, though.” 

Ren made a wry expression. “So, if you’d made it, it’d be the best, most accurate, home-made blaster rifle the galaxy had ever seen?”

“I’m sure I could improve it. See, the problem with a mag-link accelerator is that if there’s any play between the cage and the barrel the bolt will be drawn off line.” He gestured with his hands to illustrate. “And if the timing on the circuits isn’t right, you don’t get enough amplification or enough acceleration.”

“Maybe you can play with it later. We might have the tools. You probably know what’s in the locker better than I do.”

“Tools are one thing. We need the sole use of a practice firing range for calibration, or somewhere out in the middle of nowhere where they don’t mind gunfire.”

“We will see what we can do.”

“It would be a lot easier if the Kanji simply did as everyone else does and bought blasters from a reputable merchant. This insistence on the ways of long ago to spite modern technology, it really is silly.” He caught sight of Ren’s lightsaber peeking out from his long shirt. The weapon of a bygone, so-called _civilised age_. “Oh. Yes. Well.”

“You like your antique pens and bound books. And your Bresko oil. So you can talk.”

“Bresko oil is my secret weapon. I never get a cracked heel or a dry elbow.”

“You used to get terrible dry elbows.”

“Yes. Because the supply of Bresko oil had been temporarily interrupted. Cause and effect.”

“Anyone would think you were on a credit commission for every bottle sold.” 

 

* * *

 

Apart from a short walk on that scrubby little planet, he’d barely stretched his legs since… since before Ren had made his sudden return.

These boots ought to be alright to run in. They weren’t running shoes, but they very much weren’t dress boots either.

He was already following signs to a boating lake. He started to jog. This was much better. After a short while he had to take off his jacket and tuck it under his arm. The air was fresh and tasted good, in a way that the air on a starship had never tasted.

He reached the lake, and found that the path ran all the way around it. He’d do one lap, and if Ren came back from his rendezvous, he’d have to meet and find him. That was fair.

The path followed the shore almost exactly, tucking back behind a couple of promontories into an wooded area. Beneath branches of tall conifers, the path was thick with damp needles. Pleasant to run on and sweet scented. 

On the completion of his one lap, he sat down.

Birds approached. Webbed feet. Ducks. He hadn’t seen a duck since he was four years old. He hadn’t liked them then.

The duck approached closer and made a disgusting noise in its throat.

“What do you want? Go away.”

The duck prodded with its bill at his boot. The bright blue feathers on its head and neck shimmered. Needlessly colourful, for such an average creature.

“Go away!”

He remembered someone, his mother, or more likely the droid, holding on to the hood of his raincoat to prevent him from chasing after the ducks. And there had been that time, it came back to him now, all fully realised, where he’d run off after the ducks, and a big duck had turned the tables and come at him, and he’d tried to run away and Ellis had laughed and laughed. He far preferred it when the hound, Nardo, chased the ducks. Then mother or father would call Nardo back and tell him off, before putting him back on his leash.

He threw a stone into the pond. The splash was dissatisfying.

Nardo was a good dog. He remembered that much, at least, and he remembered how sad he’d been when they had to get rid of him. Because it wasn’t just “the dog died,” was it? Father had had his reasons, which were, he’d learned later, to do with the war. The dog. The first great loss of his and Ellis’ lives. And not long later, the Empire fell; they’d had to pack a few bags, take an evac shuttle, and leave everything else behind. 

That kind of loss wasn’t supposed to happen again. But here he was, having grabbed a bag and gone with no notice, leaving everything behind. (Not quite everything, though.)

It suddenly struck him. Ellis. And his little niece and nephew, too. Ellis would be suspected of collaborating with him or at the least having knowledge of his whereabouts. Being deputy Minister wouldn’t count for a piece of shit. Being married to a top Admiral wouldn’t help either. Hell, she might even have had the knock on the door from Security Bureau agents already. His mother, too.

He wished he could get in touch with her, warn her, tell her to get out somehow. But it could only serve to further incriminate her. A comm link record of a call from an unknown number in Republic space – if she were already under suspicion, this would damn her even further.

He wanted to talk to Ren about it. Ren who already had so much on his plate. Ben Organa, the little lost prince, was going home under the protective wing of Lord Vader himself. What did that great family care about some trifling viscountess of some paltry few thousand square kilometres? No. Ren would care. He cared about things now – he always had, yet… no. There was nothing to do because there was nothing to do. He feared for Ellis, and little Maron and Hebetine, because he knew full well what standard procedure was in such cases. By hell, he had implemented the same himself, and been relieved and grateful when the target in question had been eliminated.

This sort of thing didn’t happen to Callands, or Huxes, or loyal officers. Except it very clearly did.   

He threw another stone into the water, out of frustration rather than the desire to hear the splash (underwhelming) or watch the ripples (taunting him with symbolism; oh how they spread from an initial point of impact, oh how meaningful). A group of ducks scattered, regrouped and moved off towards a group of tourists, a family who were more likely to throw crumbs than stones. Did they have anything to worry about, he wondered. Any family members who might have suddenly dropped them in it? Unlikely.

Ellis was wily and observant. She’d notice an unfamiliar speeder, or unusual behaviour from an underling. That might prove to be her salvation. It might not get as far as the knock on the door.

And still, nothing to be done. He hadn’t had time to warn her. If he hadn’t taken the reckless chance to run, he would be suffering the worst the Order had to offer, and she’d barely be any safer. The black mark against his name would have transferred its bitter ink to hers, in any case.

There was a man a little further around the perimeter of the lake who might, might have been following him. He seemed to be glancing Hux’s way a little too often for comfort. Hux was glad to have his hair brushed forward onto his face but surely a new hairstyle and civilian clothes would not and could not be enough.

When Ren came back, they might have to do something about him. If the man left, he might need to follow him. Or if he left, the man might follow him.

While he weighed up options, he heard voices he recognised. Over at the boat hire station, the two women from the omelette cafe were getting into a row boat. The larger and stouter of the two was deriving a great deal of humour from the situation. He hated them. He hated their comfortable late middle age, he hated their obvious comfortable happiness, he didn’t like the fact that one was only Near Human although you could barely tell, and he hated that he couldn’t tell if they were spies either.

They could be terrorists or they could be working for the First Order. This planet, quite probably crawling with spies. This _nightmare honeymoon_ that Ren had dragged him on. Not that he would complain about the romance and the declarations of love, or the comfort they felt with each other, but right now, none of it precisely helped. He might have the opportunity to be killed or captured while his heart was decorated with a warm blissful glow, rather than with the more customary steely note of will and discipline.  

He ought to go. Then at least he could find out if that man was going to follow him or not.

“As good a place as any for you to try to disappear,” Ren had said. And look how much that was to be trusted.


	8. No time to rest

The path that led from the boating pond back to the centre of Koire Station seemed narrower, longer and more dangerous on the way back. Every few steps, Hux wanted to look behind himself to check that the suspicious looking man wasn’t following him. He had to resist the temptation, as what could be more suspicious looking than someone who kept looking over their shoulder every thirty seconds.

The women from the omelette shop were almost certainly still rowing on the lake, so they wouldn’t be following him. But the man, or indeed _literally anyone else_ , could be working with them, or for them. Or for anyone.

He had to get a grip. 

He slipped behind a broad tree for a moment and reminded himself that his blaster was close at hand and his little knife was safely concealed. More people walked by, mainly with the meandering step of carefree tourists. Some wore expensive looking clothes, as far as Hux could tell. Most of those who were more simply dressed carried themselves with the same lazy, entitled presence as the fancy folk. Like the fancy Republican folk with money and Order sympathies that he’d had to meet and shake hands with as a younger man. These were the sort of people who could manage to find themselves on vacation while there was a war going on. Distasteful, really, that level of decadence. But it meant that the cover story Ren had provided was rather believable. He must have done his research. Hux decided he would make a point of complimenting Ren on this. Back in the day _(all of eighteen months, two years at most, D, don’t be more glaze-eyed and witless than you can help)_ Ren was always pouting and sulking about not being given enough credit for his efforts. So he would try now to praise him and pay him a little compliment. After all, he was, he considered with more of a thrill than he was ready for, _actually_ his boyfriend now, and that was how that sort of thing was supposed to work.

Feeling more confident again, he went back on his way toward the town centre, hopefully in reasonable time to intercept Ren after whatever he had had to do with his secret contact.

A supply shop caught his eye. They might end up out in the wilds, if his new trekking boots were not merely for show, which would necessitate food rations. Ren’s ship had a few bits and pieces of food, but it would be worth stocking up, just in case — they might also end up making more space journeys.

The shop, though small, had a little of everything. It stocked easy-cook instant meals for trekkers, and even a few military style ration packs. They weren’t seemingly genuine, at least not of Imperial or First Order origin and, he was fairly sure, not genuine New Republic issue either, but they appeared to be of good quality. Hux picked out a few packs, with their familiar looking foil sachets of nutrisust paste, protein portions, powders for milk and self-forming bread, biscuits (brown) and hard sugar. Not too dissimilar to what they’d all eaten during the lean years. He tried to estimate how many he thought they'd need. Enough for ten days low intake or five days high intake seemed about right.  This was as near as he was getting to project management, these days. He strolled around a little more and picked out a traveler’s map of the Northern Uplands and a souvenir map set. Ren had said, or maybe only suggested, that their contact was up there, in a remote valley. He wondered if Ren got some sort of kick out of withholding all but the bare minimum of information from him. Perhaps it was just an old habit.

He chose some beer, for Ren more than for himself, and a half bottle of the Belle Brook Double, finished in two different Corellian oak wine-casks. As a treat. He might be needing a treat.

He had by now almost completed a full circuit of the shop, and was approaching the front counter. A customer was loudly conversing with the shop assistant, who he seemed to know. Hux was at first annoyed to see time being wasted, but as the conversation turned political he decided to browse a little longer, hidden behind a high shelf, and listen in. 

“Half of them are bloody corrupt,” the customer declared. “In it with them. They’ve got to be.”

“You do hear things,” the shop assistant said with some equanimity.

“Someone in the admin is in it with the First Order. There’s been deals done. Money changed hands.”

This was juicy stuff. Hux kept listening and resisted the temptation to scratch the itch of his beard.

“You don’t think the Senator is in it, do you? He’s supposed to be alright.”

“Oh, he’s alright, I don’t think he’s involved. But it goes high up. Commerce ministry. Bribes. In kind.”

“You reckon? You reckon there’s something in the whisky rumour?”

The whisky rumour! This was too good.

“There’s barrels of the stuff that goes to the top generals and admirals.”

Actually quite close to the truth, then.

“And that’s all it takes to keep them sweet? They could come down here and nab the lot.”

“It’s a, what do you call it, a gesture. It lets them know they’re not forgotten. Main thing is who runs the exporters.”

“Oh, aye?”

“Sympathisers. Fifth columnists. They cook the books and pass the difference on to the Order. So when they do decide to invade, everything’s set up nicely for them.”

“They do say, though, worse thieves at the top than there is at the bottom.”

“There is. You lose more to them at the top than what you do to kids with light fingers and big pockets.”

“Aye.”

Another customer had come to stand in line behind the chatty conspiracy theorist, which gave him his cue to gather his things and leave. Hux moved to queue up behind the lifeform next in line, and took the chance to discreetly weigh up the surroundings a little more. There were posters on the wall behind the counter. One was a fairly bland public health poster extolling the virtues of good hand hygiene. Another was a quite blatant piece of Republican propaganda, and the third, and most worrying, exhorted readers to contribute to efforts to reunite war torn families. Innocuous on the surface, but with the chosen image (a child’s face, a weeping mother and a stormtrooper in silhouette) clearly meant as disruptive propaganda against the Stormtrooper program and the First Order’s rehabilitative efforts with war orphans. Or at least, what could loosely be termed rehabilitative efforts and what could loosely be termed war orphans. The people behind this (Family Reunion Trust) must be a Resistance front group, aiming to sabotage the cadet training program. What was the point — the children had all the family they needed in the Order, surely? Their needs were met. They had an education, and not just any education. They were an elite combat force. His army. Then it hit him. They weren’t his army any more, not now. And that was the worst of it. _If you could not dismantle my army before I get the chance to command it again, thank you very much._ Whenever the hell that might be.

On the counter, right by the till as he paid, was a charity collection tub for the organisation. Money-grabbing. Organa herself would be behind this, cloaking an act of wartime sabotage in this feel good family tearjerking nonsense and gladly grabbing fistfuls of credits as she went. Her and that damned FN-2187. What did they do with the money? Did they just give it to him, the deserter? Perhaps he spent it on beer and fast speeders. Good luck to the chap if he did, Hux thought. The gullible deserve to be fooled.

Walking down the main street, he glanced around hoping to spot Ren, not wanting to have to hang around, outside and exposed. With a great rush of relief and joy he saw him, that unique profile, just stepping out of the shop. He quickened his pace and went to him, drinking in the smile Ren gave him.

“There you are. Darling.”

Ren took his arm and continued the performance. “Sweetness.”

“Is this chance that I almost immediately run into you, or,” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “your magic?”

Ren made an amused little “huh” sound. “No. Neither of those. I watched from the window, and I saw you approach.”

“Oh. Very clever of you, very silly of me.”

“Did you have a pleasant time, without me?”

“Went to the boating lake. Ran around the track, just 3km, did me good.” He turned to Ren and took a more serious tone. “How did everything go?”

“Alright.”

More withholding! It was enough to drive a person around the bend. “So, what? Do we go? Where do we go? Do we need more supplies?”

“Patience.”

“I’ve had enough of patience.” He hissed again into Ren’s ear. “Look. I think I’m being followed. Possibly. Do you see a man in dark blue and brown? Young, medium build, white, brown hair.”

“Not in open view.” Ren leant in and whispered back at him, “It’s hardly a great description.”

Ren looked down at Hux’s shopping bag. “Looks like you got more supplies.”

“Yes. Food. Maps. I got you some beer.”

“Splendid.”

Hux looked at him, waiting for more.

“Back to the motel, then we go north.”

“And is this with any sense of urgency?”

“A little.”

“Kriffing hell does everything have to be…”

“Shh.” He pulled Hux closer to him and kissed his cheek and ear as a means of disguising his words. “Not good to stay in one place for too long. Plus, I don’t know that you’re wrong about being followed.”

“And are _you_ alright?”

“I answered that. Yes.”

On the road out towards the port and its motels, they both seemed to relax a little.

Down to the south west, towards the bottom of the valley, the sky was clouding over. Perhaps there would be rain.

 

* * *

 

The elevator was blinking a red out of order light. So, to the stairs.

They stepped through the slide door and Ren stopped suddenly. “Shh.” Ren gestured with his hand and hissed in little more than a whisper, “there’s someone loitering in the stairwell and I don’t like it.”

Nothing was going to be easy. His bad feeling, born down at the lake, was, it seemed, going to be actionable.

Ren’s left hand was raised, ready to use his magic – subtly, Hux hoped, _please be subtle_. He’d already told him to be careful at the last place and got short bloody shrift for it.

Hux drew his blaster.

Whoever it was retreated, probably to ambush them as they reached their floor.

“I’m gonna rush him,” Ren said, and with that he was bounding up the stairs, three at a time _(unnatural, excessive, thrilling)_. Hux followed, two at a time. His shopping bag banged a beer tin against his knee with a sound that did not bode well for the integrity of his ration packs. He cursed and hoisted the bag to his waist, clutching it to himself with his still aching left arm as he caught up with Ren.

To his mild surprise and confusion, the man was _not_ the one from the boating lake. Close cropped hair, narrow, ratty face, and a tatty padded coat. Hux pointed his blaster squarely at the man. “No sudden movements,” he said. “Keep walking. Room 314.” He did as told, footsteps muffled by the dull blue carpet. “No funny business or I’ll put a hole in you.”

Ren grabbed his key chip, opened the door and pushed the man inside. Hux followed them in, keeping his blaster trained on their captive. Ren soon had the man up against the wall, suitably terrified.

“Did you follow me or didn’t you? It’s a simple question”

“I’ve never seen you before.”

“Lies.”

They were on an edge. Ren could quite easily use the Force, but should the man turn out to be no more than a common thief, he did not want to risk their cover blown. “What manner of little thief are you?”

The man was silent.

“Who sent you? Who are you working for?”

“Not working for anyone.”

“I know that’s a lie.”

The man was defiantly silent now. He appeared to be attempting to outstare Ren, as a show of strength. Foolish, foolish, foolish. Finally he blinked and looked away, but still said nothing.

“You’ll answer me,” Ren said, coldly.

“Come on then,” Hux barked. “Answer him!”

The man huffed and avoided Ren’s gaze. 

“This can be easy or it can be hard. It doesn’t have to be hard. Just answer him. Who are you working for?” Hux drew his blaster and aimed it at the man’s knee. “Who?”

“I’m not working for anyone.”

“Tell us. Or it will get worse for you.”

Ren pressed the target further into the wall, with the Force. A line had been crossed, with the man’s own behaviour. A common criminal would have been afraid, desperately bargaining, not defiant. This man was an agent of some sort and therefore he would not last much longer. No harm done, then, if he know who and what he was really up against.

Hux searched the man and came out with a blaster, a thin wallet in an inside coat pocket, and a comm device. It was locked. “Unlock it,” he ordered.

“No.”

“Give me your fucking finger and unlock this damned thing.”

The man struggled. 

“I won’t mind cutting it off you if that’s what it takes.”

Ren restrained his hand, and Hux took the man’s forefinger and unlocked the device.

He started thumbing through the data and shortly recognised one or two names from outsourced operations he’d been involved in. While Ren did the main work of the interrogation, he’d give it some more attention. Device in one hand, and blaster aimed firmly at the man’s knee in the other. He wanted to be sure the suspect felt a clear, present, physical threat.

Another sort of threat made itself apparent. Hux felt a sudden chill. The agent’s face contorted in pain and horror, and he failed to swallow back a groan. The chill faded as soon as it had arrived. He realised, with fascination, that what he had felt was some sort of contamination or backwash, from whatever Ren had pushed into the agent’s mind with the Force. This was why standard procedure was for troopers to stand well back during an active interrogation. 

“Who,” Ren asked again, “are you working for.”

The agent whispered a “no,” and another, more despairing “no.” He was about to give in, and with another push from Ren, he did. “Densi Mirov,” he gasped, letting it out like a decompression valve.

The Mirov clan? If this was true, then this fellow was not Security Bureau. More likely in a fairly small-time mercenary gang, or a plain free-floating freelancer. Where _were_ the Security Bureau in all this, Hux wondered.

“And who are the Mirov clan working for?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Really.” Ren’s tone was mocking.

“Really. I don’t know!”

“You wouldn’t even… hazard a guess? Hmm? Not the inquisitive sort, eh?”

“No. I just take the money. Do the job.”

“Inquisitive enough to go sneaking around in hotels.” He sent another cold shock of fear through the man. “What did they send you here to do?” The man gritted his teeth. “Have a nice little holiday?”

Hux still had the comm device belonging to the last bunch of bounty hunters in his possession.  He could look at the email thread, compare with this agent’s comm, call out some names, and see if they got a reaction. He holstered his blaster and fetched out the older device from the pocket where he’d been keeping it safe. “Hey,” he said, without using Ren’s name although surely at this point the agent or assassin or whatever he was knew who he was dealing with. “If I read out some names, you tell me if he recognises them.”

“There’s an idea.” Ren addressed the man again. “Here’s something for you. You give me names, and if you tell me the truth before he finds it, you get a prize.”

Hux scrolled through the email thread again. He started with the names he reckoned belonged to the gang of bounty hunters they’d fought on Laspen III. “Hoof Bildang?” Nothing seemed to click with that one.

“You win that time. Let’s see again.”

Hux moved on to the next name. “Enzat Dulk?” 

“He knows _that_ one,” Ren said, then hauled off and slapped the man hard. “Speak up. Associate of yours?”

“In the past.”

“Hope you weren’t too fond of him,” Hux said.  “Anyway.  Tawan Yee?” A Malastarian name, he thought, although he wasn’t really up to speed on non-human names. 

“Some recognition. He knows the name, but not much more.”

“Can you get any more than that?”

“Let me try.”

The agent groaned in pain as his mental defences were taken out.

“It’s a mess.” Ren said. “I see the Mirov clan, and some contacts of theirs.” He questioned the agent again. “Who was coming and going when you met with Densi Mirov? Show me. Come on now.” He relayed what he saw to Hux. “A human and two Duros. Not the Duros we met, though. Hmm. I see this man took the job without knowing the details.”

“They gave me coordinates. Then they sent me the brief.”

“Were there more coordinates? Given to other agents? You _know_.”

“They gave them to the others,” the man said weakly.

“Best if you remember,” Ren said. Then he read from the man’s mind. “Ryloth and Laspen already allocated. Plus other systems you don’t remember. Mirov asked you to come here to Hegaria.”

“Yes. A long shot. It was a long shot.”

“Probably why they didn’t send anyone particularly significant,” Hux said. He scrolled through the emails again. Aha! Major Welling. Admiral Beynon’s assistant. He tried it. “Major Welling.”

“No!” 

Oh. “That sounds like a hit. What do you know about a Major Welling? Who was talking to or about a Major Welling?”

“Nobody, there wasn’t anyone.”

“But there was,” Ren said. “We don’t have all day. I could have shot first and asked questions later, but I chose to do things this way around. So tell me.”

“Densi Mirov was on a call,” the man panted, “with his brother. Asked him if he’d got the details from Welling.”

“So _that’s_ who the Mirovs are working for,” Hux said. “You could have told us that at the start.” He pulled a sour face. Surely Welling and Beynon had better contacts than the Mirov clan and their ragtag hangers-on. Had the Guavian Death Gang not been answering calls?

“They didn’t want much from you,” Ren declared, staring into the man’s soul. “Just to loiter around the port and the hotels. Looking for two men meeting the description.”

“Yes, and to report back. You got me before I could get you.” He yelped in pain again. “There was a ship. Description given. Dark grey transporter. But I didn’t see it. There was one of a similar type, but not enough to report back. So I started on the hotels. Was going to keep hanging around, earning my credits.”

It was all spilling out now. Ren’s techniques were highly effective. And it proved how wise they’d been to change the ship’s appearance. The _Firecrest_ was not recognisable as the _Duskwing_. 

“There’s not much more he can tell us,” Ren said.

“No, I don’t think so.” 

“This is unfortunate, then.”

“No! Just let me go, you don’t have to…”

“But we do.” Ren squeezed and squeezed, and the man fell like rubble to the floor.

“Well, he’s a goner now,” Hux proclaimed. “What are we going to do with him?”

“There’s a garbage chute, in a maintenance droid bay, half way along the corridor.”

“So would we just drag him along and tip him in?”

“That’s the idea.”

“We could be seen. And there may be cameras.”

“True. Someone could step out of a room at any time. Okay, I can make this work.” Ren gave his full attention to the body. “Look. See.” 

The corpse moved. Hux, despite himself, shrank back momentarily then regained his poise. “Fucking hell, Ren.”

The corpse took a couple of steps. Quite normal competent steps.

“How far can you walk him like that?”

“Quite a way, if I don't need to use him.” 

 _Use him_ , Hux thought, _what, like a puppet_? “I didn't know you could do this.”

“Ha, this is just one. Easy.”

“Just one? How many can you manipulate?”

Ren made the corpse shrug, to Hux's distaste. 

“Could you _not do that_!”

“Twenty or so. Depends on whether they’d be just marching, or fighting”

“Well, well. Could you always do this or is it your recent training?”

“It's pure kinetic manipulation. The more objects, the harder it is. But, yes, I got better at it with more training. Refined the movements.”

“It’s very impressive. But, put him down.”

Ren took the agent’s comm device again, and opened the log of recent calls and messages. Hux looked over Ren’s shoulder as he tapped to send a reply to the last message from Mirov. “Give me that.”

“Why?”

“Your comm messages are riddled with typos.”

Ren handed the device back. “Say ‘Not found what I'm looking for. Stay here or move on?’ Or words to that effect. 

Hux took the dictation, sent the message, and pocketed the device. “You think it was just bad luck this one found us?” he asked.

“Hm. Yes, actually. I do. He was a hired hand, working alone, and he got fortunate. Or not. He said himself it was a long shot.”

They jointly packed their bags. Hux slung his kit bag over his right shoulder. He’d be able to carry the shopping bag of food in his left, with a little pain. He looked back at the bed. “It’s been eventful.”

“It has. Come on. Let’s get rid of this.”

Ren put his big duffel bag over his back, and with a flexed hand and a narrowed eye, raised the corpse to its feet again, and walked it to the door. Hux couldn’t stifle a little chuckle at the sheer absurdity of the situation.

“It is quite funny,” Ren conceded. “Poor bastard. They fucked up, sending him.”

The living and the dead walked together down the corridor to the maintenance droid bay. Just as if everything was normal. Ren asked for the wallet Hux had taken from the man’s person. He tossed it straight down the trash chute, and tipped the body after it. “What a tragic accident. Trying to look down to see if his wallet had gone with the trash, and he fell. Broke his neck, the poor sod.”

“So. That’s that.”

“It is.” Ren looked at him with a half smile. “You used to like maintenance closets.”

“That was you. And, please. We need to get going.”

Hux kept his hand on his blaster as they descended the stairs. As they neared the bottom, a droid made its way through the door.

“Everything alright, sirs?”

“Yes, just fine.” He hadn’t reckoned with this place having protocol and hospitality droids, only maintenance and housekeeping droids, but he supposed visitors might like having a droid with a personality they could complain to personally.

“Our apologies for the fault with the lift. Maintenance are working on it and it will be fixed very soon.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you checking out?”

“Yes. We’ll, uh…” Ren nodded towards the automated consoles.

“Of course, sir. If you need any assistance…”

“We’ll be fine.” 

As they completed the checking out process, the hospitality droid stood watch over the maintenance droids, which beeped and clicked at it.

 

* * *

 

“Honestly, that went better than it might have done,” Ren proclaimed, once they were a few good metres up the road. He was right. It really had. They’d kept control of the situation from start to end, gathered a good deal of information from the agent, and terminated the threat before it had really been a threat. It felt like the situation, although presenting as a crisis, had been managed, which was the way Hux liked things.

“We managed the situation well,” he said. “I’ll admit we were quite lucky, too.”

“Luck is just another name for the Force at work. It’s the same thing.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “Of course it is.”

“My father always used to say ‘it’s not the Force, it’s just luck’. Even long after he knew the Force was real.”

Hux wasn’t sure he liked where this conversation was going, simply because they had enough of their plates without bringing up the wound that tore at Ren’s heart – at Ben Solo’s heart, of course, to be truthful. “Well, I’m glad of it, whatever it’s called.” 

Music came loud from the open front of a mechanic’s shop. Hux recognised it but couldn’t place it, until, there! It was the music they’d used a few years ago as backing for the internal “Thunder Of Guns” TIE pilot recruitment film.

“Hey, do you remember this?”

“A little. I wasn’t involved, though.”

“I think you were away. Doing something sacred and important.”

“More important than an advertising film.”

“Recruitment. Not advertising. Although the bloody pilots made such a fuss of themselves, you’d think it was the latest holodrama.” It had been quite a to-do, and he’d been glad that the film had been made “in association with Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems “ – in other words they had put up some of the money. Half the film had been shot on board the _Finalizer_ , and half on board the _Assertive_. Hux’s sister had come up from the Ministry for two days to supervise, ostensibly to give everything the Ministry of Communications seal of approval, but also to pass gossip and intrigue between the two Star Destroyers. She would of course have denied any desire to feast her eyes upon daring young men in shiny flight suits, but Hux knew at least some of her secrets, knew that she was not made of stone any more than he was. Anyway. In the end, despite disagreement among the admirals as to whether the flying stunts shown represented an accurate portrayal of flight deck protocol, the film had been a success and Starfighter Command had seen an uptick in applications.  

All this reminiscing was no good. Hux found himself missing life on board ship terribly. He ought to be there now. But he couldn’t be. And as much as he wanted to blame the man beside him, it wasn’t his fault. The plot had sealed his fate. Snoke had directed it, betrayed and rejected him. Those were the facts. But the facts didn’t stop him wishing, and that was the worst part of it.

They reached the port and made their way towards the side entrance for pilots of private craft. “Haste Ye Back,” read a poster on the wall.

“So we’re just away now, are we? Anywhere in particular?”

“Let’s get on the ship and we’ll look at the maps.”

A port official and a droid waited behind a standing console. Ren fumbled in his pocket for their travel pass, mumbling apologetically. Hux looked on, not sure if he was playing the part of the long suffering partner. Travel pass produced, the official waved them through. “Await clearance from traffic control on channel 02 and follow ground crew instructions,” the droid said.

The _Firecrest_ was waiting for them, neat and tidy. They stowed the bags, and stepped back out to do a quick external pre-flight check. Nothing had changed since landing. Hux was keen to make sure that the tool locker had not been tampered with, and relieved to find it hadn’t. The thruster jet vents needed brushing and shunting as a precautionary measure. Other than that, everything was good to go.

“We’re headed north,” Ren said, once back inside.

“Is that it? North.”

“No. Wait and listen.”

Hux gritted his teeth and breathed through his nose.

“You remember I told you about a contact, high up by a mountain pass?”

“Yes, so is that where we’re going?”

“Her name is Taina Ahlan, and she runs a sort of guest house,” Ren said, as he got into the pilot’s seat and woke the computer from its sleep.

“Alright, and is she expecting us?”

“Yes.”

Like blood from a stone.

“Does she know about me? Because I’m not sure if I…” Hux ran his hand through his hair, “…not sure if I would be comfortable about that.” 

“She knows about me. I spoke to her. She knows I have intelligence assets that I might share.”

Hux tightened his belts and brought the ship’s outboard sensor circuits online. “So I’m an intelligence asset now?”

“Just let me speak. This is hard enough. I know what I have to do but it isn’t easy. I have to trust these people and I have to trust myself and I have to trust that I’m strong enough to stay on this path.”

This didn’t sound so good. From feeling in control as they’d interrogated and terminated the unlucky spy, he now felt out of control again. He was being dragged along on this merry little adventure with little to no say in anything that went on. His beard itched. His brain itched.

“Continue, then.”

“I have to be there, in person, and then we make the call. The big call.”

Hux sighed. “I only wish you’d tell me these things with more than a few moments notice, instead of parading me through the streets like an idiot who doesn’t know what time third shift starts.”

“Forgive me for not yelling highly sensitive information at the top of my voice in the middle of the street. Forgive me for not saying ‘that was a productive meeting with a Resistance agent, let's head directly to these coordinates to rendezvous with another higher ranked Resistance agent’ because _that_ would have gone well.”

“All I am asking, is to not be kept completely in the dark. And to have some input.”

“What input do you want?”

“Any input!”

“OK, fine. We have time to kill before we make our rendezvous, two days, because Taina still has paying guests. So why don’t you choose somewhere to stop on the way. There’s some input.”

“It’s still… look, you've dragged me halfway across the galaxy, twice, and I just feel like a piece of luggage. An accessory.”

Ren gave a wounded look. “That's not fair. I told you, and you listened, and you said you loved me too.”

“I do. I do. But that doesn't mean you can pick me up and carry me around like a toy.”

“I saved you.”

“I know. But, look, have you? Are you? You're delivering me into the hands of the enemy. And I'm just blindly going along with it.”

“Don't foretell the worst future when you can't see it. And I gave you the chance to opt out. You said you wanted to stay with me.”

“I do. I do want to stay with you. But I don’t like…” he breathed out strongly through his nose and thinned his lips before continuing, “… I don’t like the feeling that I have no choice.” He didn't like the feeling that he was no more in control of his movements than the dead man who'd walked under Ren's Force command, even though it seemed stupid even as he thought of it. He _was_ choosing to stay with Ren. There was honour in it: he had already decided that.

“Don’t you trust me?”

“I do.  That’s… oh, just start the engines.”

Ren started the primary propulsion unit and clicked the ships repulsorlifts on. “Let’s get clear, then look at the charts.” He called in to traffic control and requested a takeoff number.

Hux loaded the maps he’d bought onto his datapad. He could see the likely route between Koire Station and the tiny ports that served the Northern Uplands region. He would look for an uninhabited flat area where they could land and test that rifle. Or maybe, an uninhabited stretch of coastline. He hadn’t seen coastline in thirty years.


	9. Coastline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuck-all happens, some light MacGuyvering, and a crab boil for two.

The Firecrest descended on a demarcation between rough green-purple land and rough blue-grey sea. The coordinates Hux had chosen brought them to a shallow bay across which waves whipped. A stretch of sand was exposed but still wet. Tides, Hux thought.

Ren, meanwhile, was making continuous fine adjustments for atmospheric conditions.

Landing gear lowered, and the craft touched down, with a slight bump. Hux unclipped his belts and made for the hatch. 

He pulled the ramp release switch and atmospheric conditions made themselves immediately apparent. The air, taking its share of his lungs as the ramp lowered, was different even from the air at Koire Station. The fresh, clean, salt note of it was just like the rare precious dry days on Arkanis. He heard waves crashing on rocks – a sound that was suddenly familiar, but that he would perhaps have struggled to recall without the reminder.

He stepped down onto short rough dark purple grass. The bay, to his left, was broad and shallow, sheltered from the wind by a rocky promontory. He walked out onto the point, carefully stepping from one rough grey rock to another, then stood, straight-backed, and watched the waves. One after the other, they came: always another to replace the last, and he felt, if not calm, then something near to it. It was a system of oscillations, and it kept going. There was something reassuring in that.

And still, it was dangerous.

He heard Ren’s approaching footsteps on the rocks. He might as well speak to him. “Here you are,” he said. “Here we are.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes. I think so, at least.”

Ren frowned at him and the wind made wide, wild shapes of his hair. “You seem troubled.”

“Oh, it’s a lot of things.” There was a short silence. “It reminds me a little of Arkanis.”

“Perhaps that is why you chose to land here.”

“Well, perhaps it is.” The wind flipped and ruffled Hux’s hair, too. “We were forbidden to go by the shore. It was dangerous.”

“This isn’t dangerous.”

“You don’t go out on the beach because even though it’s shallow, the sea monster can easily reach the shore. You don’t go out on the rocks because you could fall, or a wave could take you,” Hux said, reciting like a well-taught child or a well-programmed droid.

“The waves aren’t big enough to wash you away. And if they were, you’d have to stand right there where they’re breaking. And I know you wouldn’t do that. You’re a cautious man, if you’re anyone.”

“I suppose.” Hux folded his arms and looked out to sea. “There was a young kid who did come to grief on the rocks.”

“Oh?”

“He was the son of a member of staff at the Academy. I remember my mother and father speaking of them, years later, I suppose it must have been. The parents didn’t teach their child better, and they were, quite rightly, ostracised.”

“I see.”

“I don’t remember it happening, but we were told about it. A shameful thing.”

Ren walked a little closer to the breaking waves, and Hux followed him. 

“But look at _me_ ,” Hux said. “My situation. Have _I_ come to grief? Who was supposed to teach me better? What lesson did I fail to learn?”

“I saved you before anything happened.”

“But should you have? I wonder.”

The larger waves slapped at the rocks and sent loops of white spray-foam into the air.

“You chose a pleasant landing place,” Ren said. “The waves are beautiful.”

“Thank you. They are. I like them. But I’m… oh, this is foolishness. Listen, we’ve got things to do.”

“Alright.”

“I want to see how sheltered and flat it is down there, on the sand side. Then I want to test that rifle and see if I can’t get it shooting in a straight line.”

“Lead on.”

The sandy bay was nice and flat, and on the far side were scattered various items of jetsam. Hux went to explore. There were plastic containers and barrels and a few fragments of what must have been a modular waterborne craft.

“We’ll have that. The armoured bit.” 

“Are those my orders?” Ren said, with a raised eyebrow and a little smirk, as he shouldered the piece of marine waste.

What Hux needed to do was to make a target. With his back to the prevailing wind, he spotted a rock that could be of use. “Prop it up against that rock. Then we’ll mark out a target.”

Ren then went back to poking about under the shallow cliff. “Here,” he called. 

“What’s that?”

“Charcoal,” he said. “Someone had a fire here.”

“Not recently, I hope. I do not want people, or _any_ bloody sentients, coming down here to spy on us. We’ve had enough of that.”

“I think…”

“No, don’t say it.”

Ren stayed quiet.

“What I want,” Hux said, “is some kind of string or twine… now, what’s that?” Further towards the water he’d spotted a long stringy whip-like length of something. “Is that, what did we call them, these sea plants?” He reached it and plucked it from the sand. “It is! Like a bootlace. It’ll do us very well.”

He marched happily back to the piece of marine craft that Ren had propped up. “With this, and your charcoal, we can draw circles. And with circles we have our target.” Holding one end of the seaweed steady, he sketched out a series of concentric circles.  “I’ll pace out fifty from here.” He did so, and marked a line in the sand with the toe of his boot. “Right. Let’s get that rifle and a couple of hydrospanners, and a bracket jig.”

“I don’t know if we have a bracket jig.”

“Oh, you must do.”

Hux half jogged and scrambled back up the low cliff path to the ship. He cranked open the maintenance hatch and started digging about in the tool locker, where there was indeed a bracket jig, and a set of hydrospanners. They were soon clipped to his belt. With the jig under his right arm, he went back down to the beach. Ren watched him, quietly, and followed him to his marked-out line.

“Calibration,” Hux said, then set his own blaster to medium power, short bolt, and raised his arm. He breathed in and out to settle himself, and took three shots. From where he stood, he could see they were grouped near the centre of the target, just to the right.

“Not bad,” Ren said.

“Not bad? Of course not bad. Trained from, if not birth, then an early age. Was handling blasters from the age of seven.”

“I wasn’t much older myself.”

Hux looked at him from the side of his eye.

“You know. We kept it quiet from my mother – she wouldn’t have approved. She would have had me start safety training in my teens, like she did.”

“The ways of senators and their children,” Hux said, as he strode off to the target to get a closer look. A good grouping, considering the distance. He returned to his toe line, making calculations in his head as he went. He turned the gain on the Kanji rifle right down, to, if his calculations were correct, approximate the medium power setting on his blaster.

He lifted his arm and fired once. The bolt was noticeably off line. 

“OK, let’s move that board, and I’ll try something with the amplification.”

Ren raised a hand and dutifully moved the board. 

Hux adjusted the rifle and fired at the rock behind. Some small pieces broke off.

“Hmm. That smaller piece of armoured plate. Could you prop that up?

Ren did so, his magic seemingly at Hux’s command. Hux fired at it, then went to inspect the damage. “See, I want to test it with the amplification and acceleration turned up slightly, but I don’t want to disintegrate our target board. What rating is this armoured plate, I wonder – did you look?”

“I don’t recall you asking me to.”

Hux turned the piece of metal plate over, and made a terse disappointed little grunt when his scrutiny failed to bring out a maker’s mark or composition code. The larger piece, however, did have an incomplete fragment of a composition code right at its edge. “It's C class, and we can see it's 11mm sandwich.”

“What does that tell you that we don’t already know? Standard blaster lightly dents it, high power nearly penetrates, therefore it's mid rated.”

“I don't remember the exact parameters, but we could look them up. If I use this weapon in anger, I shan’t want it below a thousand joules.”

“Go with what you’ve got. Trust your feeling.”

Hux sighed. “I’m trying to go with what I’ve got. I can’t send this down to a technician. I _am_ the technician.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Ren said, and turned to go back to Hux’s firing line. Hux followed him, then weighed the weapon in his hands again.

“This is actually rather well made. The Kanji may choose to maintain an image of uncouth savagery, but when it comes to what matters, they can be very switched on.”

“They subdued the Hutts.”

“Which is to be admired. I wouldn't make a formal alliance with them, but…” Hux suddenly paused, realising the silliness of his position. Alone, with no army to command nor colleagues with whom to plan conquest and discipline. Needing to trust in the technology of this sub-civilised clan in order to stand a chance of defending himself. “Ah, point being, this is quite good workmanship. Decent quality parts, well put together. Needs a little physical alignment, but the timing circuit seems alright from what I can tell.” He had the rifle clamped into the bracket jig to keep it stable, and he was making adjustments with a hydrospanner. 

Ren looked on, fondly. “You’re so happy when you’re busy.”

“I suppose I am.”   

“You speak softly, when you’re giving technical instructions.”

“I suppose I do. But you’ve sat in on meetings before – you’ve heard me speak to engineers and technicians.”

“Yes. But you weren’t speaking to me, then.”

“I don’t see what difference that makes.”

“Maybe you don’t. I like watching you work. It reminds me of when I first had the ship.”

So now a piece of Ren’s history would be dragged up. Trailing emotions like sea plants and marine rubbish behind it, no doubt. 

“It’s like watching my uncle working on things.”

“Your uncle?” Hux asked, loosening and tightening a bolt. “Skywalker?”

“No, no. Not an _uncle_ uncle, just an everyday uncle. My father’s first mate. The Wookiee.”

“The one who shot you? The one who planted explosives in my thermal oscillator?”

“Yes, that one. He helped me with some things when I first got the ship. I was just a kid then.”

“The ship was a gift, if I recall right?” Hux decided to stick to the basics. Emotional minefield notwithstanding, the Solo-Organa-Skywalker family was a complicated mess from what he knew of it. Hux was not sure what was meant by _an everyday uncle_ , for one thing.  

“I was fourteen. It was supposed to be a worthwhile and wholesome hobby. And less than a standard year later, they sent me away to Skywalker’s Jedi school.”

“And what happened to the ship after that?”

“Garaged, mostly. I had one home trip, and I was supposed to take it out for a week with friends, but that never happened. The idea was that it was there for me to use once I qualified, or if I ever did change my mind.”

“I never had anything like that, even theoretically, you know. If we hadn’t been exiled.”

Hux didn't want to risk the suggestion that Ben Solo had been spoiled. Some more extravagant families of the Huxes’ and Callands’ acquaintance might have been the type to give their offspring a small low powered land speeder as a ceremonial coming of age present, hypothetically, in the case where the Empire had not fallen and everything had carried on as normal. A transporter made into a personal party vessel would have been absolutely out of the question. 

“I would have been twenty-three when I liberated it, then we used it for operations for nearly two years. After that, parked up on Snoke’s hidden moon, for the most part. Most of the low profile seek and destroy work was done. When we no longer needed it, it was left there and forgotten.”

“Snoke and his guards consider it perfectly normal to have old micro freighters littering the place?”

“It belonged to the past, but not the past that was destroyed.”

That was the best answer Hux was going to get, at least for now.

“You could raise that up on a heap of sand,” Ren said. “If you don’t want to use it two-handed with the jig.”

“No, I’d rather keep it like this.” He reloaded the weapon’s primary compression chamber and fired another test shot with the weapon still in its jig. “Actually, I should test it from a prone position. You’re right. Put some sand just there.”

Ren obeyed him, his long legs folded under him as he squatted and patted moist sand into a heap. 

Watching him, Hux felt a strange swell of pride and love. He lay down, then, in a semi-prone position behind the mound of sand, suppressing a twinge in his left shoulder, and shuffled around to get a good sight on the target.

“That’s more accurate already.” He sat up and brushed sand from his front. “You try it.”

Ren flicked more sand from his hands and took the rifle.

“Does the Force make you more accurate with a blaster?”

“It can do. It did for my mother, I think. And my father, too. I always suspected he had some sort of attunement with the Force. I told him as much a few times but he would never hear it.”

“ _My_ father would have had the lot of you tested, and had some scheme started for multiplying Force sensitivity. You know, for the cadets. I stopped bothering with all of that.”

“Your father thought the Force could be harvested. Dangerous idiot.”

Hux sighed. “That is perhaps a little harsh. Set aside his Force obsession, and his ideas were essentially sound.”

Ren handed the weapon back. “If you say so.”

Hux squinted at the rifle’s acceleration cage. “Right, so, we need to tighten this part of the cage and lock it in.”

“I could help.”

“I don’t know how I feel about you and fine detail work. I’ve seen your lightsaber. But you could fetch me… do you have, possibly, a small piece of extra thin plate? Thin durasteel or titanium alloy, if possible.”

Ren shrugged. “In the box where you found the hydrospanners – there might be some odds and ends. I’ll fetch and carry for you.”

“Thank you.” 

Ren was trying to be very helpful and accommodating and it was rather touching. Hux thought of that vow he’d made to make the best of this and have honour by it: it had seemed easier there, in the familiar blackness of space. But here in this atmosphere with its breeze and salt scent, with all the practicalities and dangers and Ren now so quiet and painfully helpful, making up for the things he’d let happen, it was harder. There he was, this man so overflowing with power, who wanted so badly to be loved that he demanded it from someone who, well, didn’t entirely have the badges for it.

Ren came back, and Hux refused to see either the pirate or the prince in his brisk trudge across the sand. He thanked him, rummaged in the box and poked and prodded with a gauge, muttering to himself about thicknesses, bracing, and slippage. The smallest tools were adequate to the task, allowing him to brace the acceleration cage with a very small piece of durasteel.

He took the rifle out of the jig and tested it again. “There, see?” He tried a shot on high power, which did indeed cut a hole right through the target board. He immediately turned the gain back down – though the rifle took standard gas packs and power packs, he only had so many of each. “Accurate and stable. I think we can call that a success.”

“Well done. I’m going in the water.”

In the _water_. Ren wanted to _swim_.

“Alright, but is it okay? Are there monsters?”

Ren laughed. “You sound like a child.”

“Life-forms, Ren, life-forms of an aggressively carnivorous nature. Are there any?”

“I don’t sense large life-forms.”

“Poisonous fish?”

“Not that I can tell. I’m going to swim. Come with me if you want. I do assume you know how.”

‘Of course I know how. We were taught how, in immersion tanks.”

“Then it’s up to you.”

Ren stripped out of his clothes, and left them folded on the sand, his lightsaber hilt and blaster out of sight inside a fold of his jacket. He placed a small rock on top of everything and made his way, with a fluid, easy, naked stride, down to the water. He kept going, wading right in, and Hux felt a little pang of anxiety, and another of envy.

He waded further in and then dipped his body right beneath the waves, and set out swimming. And then, seemingly, that was all that remained of Kylo Ren, and all that remained of Ben Solo: a man with broad shoulders, his wet hair clinging to his head and his prominent ears thus more apparent than ever, swimming in the ocean and ducking between the waves.

If the ocean reduced you to your essence like that, all the more reason to stay out of it.

Ren waded towards him. “Come on! While we’re here.”

“Is it cold?”

“Not very.”

“I’m putting these things back on the ship,” he called, and clipped his tools back onto his belt.

He looked down from the hatch and made a decision.

His boots were soon placed by the hatch, his shirt and trousers folded next to them. He peeled his bacta patch off, and wondered if the salt water might sting.

Stepping naked from the ship seemed odd. Clambering down the rocks barefoot and naked seemed odd. Walking naked towards the water seemed less and less odd, as he did it.

Ren had been charitable towards the water. It was cold.

“I doubt I shall swim as beautifully as you. You’re made for it.”

He dipped his shoulders under the water. The salt did sting a little on his wound. But it wasn’t too unpleasant. He then set off with a few strokes of swimming, stretching and working his limbs under the water. His left shoulder was still weaker, but capable of more work now, which pleased him. He gained in confidence and ease. A wave caught him in the face, driving water into his nose, and he made a panicked and indignant choking sound.

“You’re OK, it’s just water,” Ren called, and swam closer. “The immersion tanks don’t do that, do they?” he said, treading water close by.

Hux spat, and spat again. “I _know_ it’s just water.”

They swam together, and it was nothing like the strange recurring dreams he’d had, of a lake with calm water and a hot sun. But at the same time, they were together, in the water, and happy. The water beneath them was blue, with dark patches of seaweed. There was nothing there that might tempt Ren away into a darkness he’d never return from.  

“I’m getting cold.”

“Alright. We’ll go in.”

He ran up the beach, the rough sand sticking to the soles of his feet. It made walking on the flat stones leading up to the bottom of the cliff distinctly unpleasant. 

Once inside, he opted to rub himself down with a towel rather than taking a sonic shower. Afterwards, he combed his hair back with his fingers.

“There’s my General,” Ren said, “With the slicked back hair.” He smiled with it, giving a rare glimpse of his sharp, slightly uneven teeth.

“Ha. Don’t.”

“I’ve always preferred your hair loose. I told you that the first time we were together.”

“The second time.”

“You _do_ remember.”

“Of course I remember. Don’t test me.” His smile was tight and quiet. “I remember the nonsense I thought I was getting into.” A shiver caught him off guard.

“You’re cold.“

“I’m alright.”

“Sit with me. Under the blanket.”

He sat and Ren wrapped a blanket around them. Warmth started to soak through him from Ren’s body. He rested his head on Ren’s shoulder, and let him rub his back.

“I meant what I said, you know.”

“I know.”

“Not about your hair. I meant that too. But…”

“I know. So did I.” He kissed the hollow of Ren’s collarbone. Ren kissed his forehead, and stroked a fingertip along his eyebrow, a pleasant touch that he felt sure he’d never get enough of.

“Are you warming up?”

“Yes. I’m not making you cold?”

“No. You’re OK. I like holding you.”

Hux kissed his collarbone again, and brought a still-cold hand onto Ren’s shoulder and slowly down onto his chest.

“You taste of salt water.” He kissed him further, moving down his body. Kissing his side, the crest of his hip, moving closer to his cock that was hardening against the cleft of his thigh, feeling an unspoken “please,” hanging in the air. Kissing his inner thigh, his balls, smoothing hair out of the way to taste the lingering salt water on them, then licking and kissing his cock, feeling it get fully hard on his lips.

He licked and pressed with his tongue all the way up the seam, listening to the wonderful sound of Ren’s gasps and sighs, then lowered his mouth onto it. He sucked and his tongue tasted salt. 

With the blanket around his shoulders, he relaxed into it. Ren’s long fingers brushed gentle encouragement at the back of his neck. He dipped his head down and worked with his hand, enjoying the familiar pride and joy that he was making Ren, _his_ Ren, his man, feel so good. He felt leg and abdominal muscles start to twitch and breathing start to change, and readied himself to swallow.

Ren panted, groaned, cursed, and sighed, and then pulled Hux back up into his arms. “So good. So good. Love you,” he breathed, little more than a whisper. 

He kissed him, conscious of the taste of him on his tongue, and of how much Ren had always liked that. “I do love you. So much.” He looked into Ren’s eyes, lovely and warm and brown and deep, only for a moment; in case it got too much, in case he started clinging and sobbing, and saying “ _darling_ ,” and “ _Ben_ ,” and “ _yours_.”

He stood up and went for his clothes. “You did bring your things in with you?”

“Of course. You must be used to dealing with such fools.”

Ren’s clothes were indeed piled up in the corner. He pulled them back on. “We can find food outside,” he said.

“You mean, forage?”

“Indeed.”

Back outside it was, then, onto the purple grass and over the rocks.

“In here,” Ren said, crouching down next to a rock pool. “There are lifeforms in here.”

“There usually are.” Hux remembered more clearly now, his big sister showing him the creatures of the rock pools, the tiny fish, the shelled creatures so strong that only the strongest man could prise them from their rock once they were fastened there, the little tentacled things that one mustn’t ever touch. They hadn’t been supposed to be there of course, and Ellis had made him swear the little marine biology lesson to be a secret. He and Ren weren’t supposed to be here, either. But they’d already defied the number one rule, by swimming in the water. By deserting their post and the thousands who depended on their authority. They were already here, so what now?

“The bigger ones hide under rocks. I’m going to get one out.”

He concentrated, and moved his hands in the unmistakeable way. A small creature, shelled and legged, some sort of crustacean, rose from the water, stunned. Ren deposited it on a rock, on its back. A second one soon followed.

“My grandmother, “ Hux said, “hunted with a blaster like a civilised person.”

‘Why should I not use the Force?” Ren said, with a wry little smile. “We have to eat. There’s a pan in the galley,” he added. “Fetch it.”

It was Hux’s turn to be useful. Opening and closing the drawers and doors of the ship’s tiny galley, he found a primitive cooking pot with a bucket handle. Hopefully this was what Ren had wanted.

There were by now five palm-sized crustaceans. Ren filled the pan with water, and threw the creatures in.

“Now we light a fire. Dry wood.”

They gathered a small quantity of driftwood and piled it up in the same spot where beings unknown had lit a previous fire. Ren set the wood alight, of course with his lightsaber. With more bits of jetsam he made a tripod and placed it over the fire. The bucket was suspended over the flames, and two old poly-plast barrels dragged over and placed side by side to sit on.

“This is how the Knights of Ren eat.”

“It’s very _savage_.”

Ren pointed at the creatures in their pot. “Watch them. When they come to the top and float, they’re done.” And then he was off again, clutching a length of thick bare wire. He returned, with the hideous spectacle of several fish threaded on the wire like beads. He stuck one end of the wire in the ground, letting the other dance and wave over the fire. How pleased with himself he looked.

Hux stood up from the storm-battered barrel he’d been using as a seat. “I don’t know if your Knights use plates and cutlery in the field, but I know I do.” He came back with two forks and two eating trays, and a large drinking vessel of fresh water from the ship’s supply. “So here it is. Dish up, then.”

The crustaceans were still very much crustacean shaped, all claws and shell. “What am I meant to do with this?”

“The shell should be soft now. Peel it off. Eat the white flesh, leave the blue part.” He sucked some flesh from a claw. “Do you want me to take it apart for you?”

“No, I’m fine.” He didn’t want to burn his fingers, so took his knife from its sheath and sliced through the shell before levering it off with his fork. Just as he was coming to terms with the messy interior of the crustacean and its sweet flesh, Ren then piled some small singed fish on his tray.

“Eat them whole,” he said.

“Head and everything?” Hux had a real feeling of nostalgia, then, for First Order Navy luncheon mash in all its dullness, and Standard Sausage, not to mention senior officer’s mess specials of meat pie and chopped greenstalk. The fish had their tiny bones, which were strange to crunch through. But it was food, hot and fresh, and it had kept their rations packs intact for another day.

He picked up a stone, ran his fingers over it, and put it down again. “Thank you. For lunch. And I know you’ve been trying to be… I don’t want to say ‘be good’ but. You know what I mean.”

“I wanted to help you.”

“It was nice.”

“I know it was important to you. That you want to protect us, too.”

“Yes. Look, it’s all I can do. Let me have some illusion of control over the situation. Even if it’s only a better weapon.”

“I value it.”

Hux sighed. “I could have done so much more for us, with time and preparation.”

“Circumstances didn’t allow.”

“I know. I know.” He drank from the water vessel. “This is our new life, isn’t it?”

“It is. I have a lot to do, and I have to be strong in order to do it; but this, this is our life.”

“I’m getting used to it.” He got up, stood behind Ren and draped a hand loosely on his shoulder. “I am.”


	10. An afternoon's sports piloting

Hux brought out his datapad and his paper map and made Ren show him, on both, where they were going.

“So this is the destination? And we’re expected there the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“I like it out here, but I do wish we didn’t have this time to kill. Makes us vulnerable.”

“It is how it is. She can’t have us there while she still has her paying guests. People stay there who have connections, is what I’m told. It’d be more risky for us — word could spread a long way.”

“If you say so.” Hux looked at the maps again. “So we go straight there, or to this port?”

“To the port. Can’t go straight there. No fly zone.”

“What?”

“No fly zone. It’s a protected zone. My contact, in the room above the shop: he told me.”

Hux sighed long and hard.

“Look it up on your datapad,” Ren said, nodding at it.

He navigated his way to _far northern uplands, accommodation, Brose Lake Station and surrounding areas_. There it was, right there on the screen. “ _Taina’s Place_ ”, a traditional inn on the ancient trekking route, brought up to modern standards in a boutique style, whatever that was. Hux cursed himself for both having checked the available information before, and then cursed Ren for not having given him the woman’s bloody name until they were on their way out of Koire Station. 

“I couldn’t, until I had conformation,” Ren said, by way of unasked for explanation.

“Erm, are you reading me? Because I didn’t say any of that out loud. Although, I didn’t feel the… the thing you do, the disturbance.”

“I didn’t have to. I could see it on your face.”

Hux ignored this and turned back to the information on his datapad. Reading down, it was plain to see. Private flights were banned within the official protected zone, for some spurious ecological reason, so visitors who were not already travelling on foot over the ancient trekking route were to park up at the lake station port, and make their own way to the inn.

“So, what? I take it we’re not getting a speeder taxi.”

“We’ll probably trek up there. A day’s walk. You can manage that — those boots _are_ comfortable?”

Hux widened his eyes momentarily, then sighed and shook his head. “Ah, I did half expect something like this. Which is why I bought rations.”

Trekking. Hiking. In the wilderness. The fresh air and the long walk he could handle, and probably enjoy, but he was only really just getting used to being planet-side. The possibility of poor weather and wet feet, and the complete absence of any form of indoor plumbing whatsoever — this was for front line soldiers, not… well. He wasn’t an officer any more. He would have to take what came to him. Discomfort grasped gently at his shoulders, and welled softly in his belly.

He stood there and watched Ren take the lunch trays and forks down to the sea to wash them in the waves. Ren took longer, really, than he should, dipping the trays in the foam again and again.

Hux took up a familiar position, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. In place of tradition, reassurance and routine, came the  breeze, touching his hair, disarranging it. He allowed it. The sound of the waves was almost starting to hypnotise him again, and Ren was still standing down at the shore, in his own contemplation. Hux decided that he really ought to have better things to do. He fetched the Kanji blaster rifle again. As he made his way down onto the sand, Ren was finally on his way back up the beach. Hux called to him. “I’m going to the far end of the bay. A test for distance.”

“I’ll come with you.”

He waited, and Ren was back with him. They made their way down the long parallel lines of sea debris, past their target rock.

“Not much armoured plate left,” Ren observed.

“No. I suppose…”

“Use the rock. You’ll either hit it or you won’t.”

“Mark an X so I’ve something to aim at.” 

Ren stood, feet planted, and jerked his head towards the rock. “Do it yourself.”

Hux diverted his path, picked up a piece of charcoal, and marked a large X on the rock itself. He knew that at distance, without a good telescopic sight he’d really be aiming at the bulk of the rock. Wiping his hand on his trousers, he paced off to the far end of the beach. Ren’s crunching footsteps followed him.

“How far are you going.”

“Don’t talk, I’m counting. 200m.”

Ren kept quiet and let Hux reach his two hundred. 

Ren’s presence next to him was comforting. Quite different to how it used to be. Before.

“If I hit it at all I’ll be happy.” He raised the weapon and fired. The bolt grazed the top left corner of the rock.

“There.”

“I’ll assume you’re not patronising me.”

He tried another shot, which hit low on the left.

“Satisfied?”

“I think so.”

They climbed up onto the low cliff, and walked back to the ship. Looking north and north east, inland, low clouds were clearing and unveiling the shapes of mountains — various sleeping warriors and clenched fists against the sky. The higher peaks were dusted with fresh snow. Their destination was there, somewhere, pointed to on the map, promised by Kylo Ren to be in some valley or another between some mountain and another. Out to sea was a dark horizon, and patches of cloud.

“There’s something.” Ren’s tone was abrupt.

“What? Where?”

“Out there. Below the horizon.” 

Ren pointed and Hux followed his finger. “I think I do see something. Indistinct. A craft, rather than a life form, I think.” 

“Do you have quadnocs?”

“Yes. Small pair in my kit bag.”

Hux started to run towards the ship, remembered his belly full of sea creatures, and not wishing to get cramp, slowed his pace.

He fetched his quadnocs from a side pocket of his kitbag, and hurried back out. He adjusted the focus and scanned the distance below the horizon, searching with difficulty for the object, hard to see against the greyish cloud-shadowed ocean. He caught it, though, and focused the quadnocs.

It was a vessel, powered, but moving slowly. There were at least three life forms on board. 

Ren had reached him. “Do you see it?”

“Yep. Manned, powered. Probably fishermen, but maybe not. Do you sense them?”

“Only vaguely.”

“You look.” He handed Ren the quadnocs, and stared out again, his jaw set, considering the range of his weapon, the safety of the ship, and the relative virtues of a quick exit. “I think we ought to make a move. I just don’t like the look of this.” 

“Wise,” Ren said, and went immediately on board.

Ren was already in the cockpit and bringing systems online as Hux went to bring up the ramp and close the hatch. He glanced out before closing the hatch only to see the boat suddenly speed up, on a trajectory heading towards the shore.

“That’s it. They’re headed straight for us. Get moving.”

The hatch slammed and sealed shut, Ren fired up the power system and raised the ship up on its repulsorlifts, and Hux scrambled into his seat and fastened some of his straps.

“Overfly them,” he said, his hands already reaching for the controls of the ship’s forward-mounted laser cannon. Ren turned the ship out to sea and pushed forward thrust. They were a hundred metres from shore, now, closing. “Nose down a little,” Hux said. and then the boat was in his sights. He fired. A bolt of yellow green light struck the vessel, with a burst of disintegrating material and a flash of flame.

“I’m making another pass,” Ren said, before taking the _Firecrest_ in a tight circle back toward the shore. The little vessel or what was left of it, was already sinking. Two beings in flotation jackets could just be seen in the water. He dipped the nose again, and Hux fired again.

Debris floated in smaller fragments, and the water darkened in patches as the Firecrest sped inland.

“No survivors, no tales to tell.”

“Sure?”

“I’m not making another pass.”

Hux hoped that meant _yes I am sure_.

 “Go east first, before we cut up north. In the event that there were any witnesses, we don’t want…”

“You worry too much.”

“I worry exactly the right amount.” 

The ship passed over square kilometres of rough land. “Slow up a little and let me bring up the charts, then I’ll see what’s what.” He tapped on buttons on the dashboard console and brought out one of his maps. 

“To confirm: Brose Lake Station, correct?”

“Correct.”

Hux checked the coordinates, entered them into the ships navicomputer, and left the outline chart on screen. 

“I never asked you — where did you get the laser cannons?”

“That front mounted one? Same as a TIE.”

“Well, yes, that _is_ what I thought.” It had the hue and power of a first generation FO TIE fighter laser cannon.

“It was a gift from the Order.”

“Really?” It wouldn’t have been Hux’s idea to gift a new recruit with official First Order starfighter firepower for his offensively decorated party transporter, but nothing of Kylo Ren’s introduction to the Order had been much of Hux’s doing or concern at the time. 

“To mark the memorandum of understanding between the Knights of Ren and the First Order.”

“Right.”

“A gift from Snoke, in other words.” 

“And the side mounted lasers?”

“Those are old. Pre Clone Wars. Used to have the same on the front. The TIE spec laser replaced it.”

“They’re well mounted, I must say. From the outside, you would not know they weren’t sensor ports unless you looked closely.” He thought for a moment. “I say, Ren, they are properly insulated, aren’t they?”

“Properly insulated.”

“I’m not worrying too much — you know how dangerous fire can be on a starship.”

Ren laughed — still an unfamiliar sound, but somehow, though mocking, it reassured him. 

“There’s no rush to get to where we’re going,” he said. “We can have some fun, piloting. If you like.”

“You mean you want to show off and you’d like me to be your adoring audience.”

“I’ll let you have a go too. I already did, but this time in atmosphere.”  

“Alright. Before we go too far, let me make doubly sure everything’s strapped down.” He loosened his belts and got up, checking bunks, double checking galley locking compartments, and the toilet valve in the fresher compartment. Handle in this position for CLOSED and LOCKED.

Ren took the ship up over a hill that turned out to be the shoulder of a broad valley. “It’s different in atmosphere to up in space,” he said.

“I know.”

“It’s still thrust vectoring, but you have to correct for atmospheric conditions.”

“I _know_ , I saw you doing it as we landed.”

“And there’s the ground. Limiting factor.”

“Yes, I can see the ground.”

“We can get closer to it if you like.”

Ren pushed on the controls and lowered altitude. It was very different to simulator work and Hux was unable to stop making a small sound of alarm. 

“I wasn’t quite expecting, is all. Although I should know damn well what you’re like.” 

“Are you ready now?”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

Ren took the ship low and fast over the valley floor. A herd of nerfs scattered on both sides. Hux thought he could almost hear their hoofbeats.

“You liked the thruster array. When you took control before.” As they’d fled from the _Finalizer_ ’s logistics hangar, engaging their own TIEs in combat, he’d put his hands on the controls and truly become a traitor. 

“I did.”

“It’s from a racing ship.”

“I see. I’ve never really followed sports piloting.”

“My father was a racing pilot for a few years. Then he managed a team — Solo Racing. But, right, you wouldn’t have heard of them.” All this talk, all these things he’d never mentioned before. 

“Thrusters from a racing ship, weapons from a starfighter,” Hux said. He wanted to add _“this is you, everything handed to you on a plate,”_ but he knew he oughtn’t and bit his tongue.

The ship zipped from one sidewall of the U shaped valley to the other in a zigzagging roll, then climbed precipitously.

“If I hadn’t been strong in the Force, I would have been a racing pilot. That’s how the story would have gone, anyway. Everyone _happy_ ,” he said, with some bitterness. He levelled out over a stretch of high rocky treeless ground that rose on one side into a high peak. It was wonderfully, beautifully bleak.

“You’re a very good pilot,” Hux said. “It doesn’t hurt me to admit that.”

He dipped into another valley, ran close to the ground, and nearly grazed a stand of pine trees.

“More trophies for Solo Racing.”

Hux really didn’t think it wise for Ren to be flying and entertaining all these messy emotions at the same time. He checked their position. They were not so very far from their destination now.

“Darth Vader was also an exceptional pilot,” Ren said.

Of this, Hux was quite aware.  They’d been taught about Lord Vader’s piloting prowess and his hands-on role in several starfighter battles. It would be natural for his heir to have gained some of his skills. Vader was, too, this hidden presence on the journey. Was he watching them even now? Ren must have been engaging in his mad ritual down at the beach, seeking guidance from his family ghost. Hux was glad that his own family ghosts were not in any way present. 

He continued to admire Ren’s piloting, and the view it gave him of the terrain, in between views of the blotchy blue and grey sky. Cliffs and sharp crags gave way to swathes of loose scree, and green meadows on the valley floors were cut through by a rocky river.

“OK, I’m gonna go hover down by the river there,” Ren said. “Keep it on repulsors, give everything a rest.”

“Alright.”

“Then you can have a go. We can keep going until it starts to get dark, so no hurry.”

That made Hux think — on the topic of time. Travel time. He continued to think, until the ship was settled in a flat hover a metre above the valley floor.

“That chap in the motel,” Hux said. “Mirov’s run-and-fetch. We gave him a head start.”

“Hm. OK. Assuming they sent him at the same time as the others.”

It was probably the wrong time to be having this conversation, but he didn’t want to go without answers any longer. “No, not assuming. Going by the dates on his com link.”

“OK, going by the dates.”

“We were one day on Laspen III, not much time in transit, and two days on Hegaria. Took him almost all that time to get from — where, Ruusan? — to Hegaria. Which seems not implausible, if he didn’t have a fast ship.”

“Or if he went to another port first.”

“Could be. But he was sent direct to Hegaria, not another system. And if someone were looking for me, which they are, and they know enough about me to be looking here, they’d concentrate on the northern hemisphere. Not the big port in the south.”

“You seem to be trying to get to the point, Hux.”

“My point is, _we_ got here pretty bloody quick. Going by the standard charts, even a fast ship like this would take ten or twelve hours to get up into this part of the Mid Rim.”

“But we didn’t go by the standard charts.”

“A secret back route known only to the Sith?”

“No. Nothing like that. A smugglers’ back route. Cuts hours off the main hyperspace point to point.”

“A smuggler’s route?”

“My father showed me the back routes. We travelled them a couple of times when I was a kid, to get to race meets or testing weeks. He said, once, ‘if you know how to get from A to B quicker than the other person, you’re at least one step ahead by definition, and what you do with that one step is up to you’ “

“That's, uh, eminently sensible.” It was the wrong time to be having this conversation. Everything was returning to the same once-forbidden topic.

“He’d say _‘all this could be useful one day so listen up, kid, you don’t know when there’ll be a nugget among the shit.’_ And so…”

“And indeed it was useful one day, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Ren said, quietly.

“I don’t know if I should bring this up, but you said — when you were, um, upset, the other night — that you wished he were here so he could help us.”

“I did.”

“Well, what I mean is, I rather think he already has.”

“Oh. Yes. That’s…” Ren sniffed, swallowed hard, and breathed heavy .

Hux reached out and placed a hand on his arm. “You’ve been so clever and so brave,” he said, knowing it sounded trite and patronising, but with no idea how to do better. “He’d have been…” and then he wished he could get out of his seat and put his arms right around him, “…he’d have been so proud of you.” He squeezed his arm tight, and hoped that his weak, insubstantial, awkward affection could be enough for Ren, for Ben Solo, who he loved.

Ren smiled weakly and stared out of the front viewport, to gather himself. “So, do you want to pilot for a bit?”

“You sure?”

“The ship is yours.”

“Alright. I’ll have a run at this and keep pushing north. You track us.”

He followed the river a little way and turned into a side valley that turned to the left and then the right. He took the ship from one side of the valley to the other, hugging the side walls just as Ren had done, and then toward the headwall. The proximity detector proclaimed its warning and he pulled the ship up into a climb, before rolling and diving into the next valley. They flew down, past rocky outcrops, towards a small round lake surrounded by trees.

Ren was looking at the maps on Hux’s datapad. “Right at the lake, then right again past that crag.” 

The suggested flightpath took him into another valley, wider and broader, with a U shaped pass at the head. 

“Take this one from the other side,” he said.  

The proximity detector gave him a warning to pull up. Not yet, he thought, feeling he knew its game now, and hung on to the last half second before pulling into a steep steep climb, feeling a thrill that broke into an urge to fire up the main engines and pull on through to break atmosphere.  He levelled out and cut back down before taking a run at the pass from the other side.

This time he breached the head of the pass and made a sharper manoeuvre back down, arching over the top of an acute parabola and leaving little space to spare  — just as another craft, another craft, another bloody ship, that he hadn’t seen on the radar, climbed from the other side, just about on a collision course. He took evasive action, instinctive, panicky, lurching to the side of the valley and scrambling to get back to a decent line of flight, eyes wide and staring out of the viewport for any more oncoming ships, glancing down at the radar _(why wasn’t it there why wasn’t it there why wasn’t he looking why wasn’t Ren looking)_.

He hadn’t taken proper notice of the large boulders littering the valley floor, and though his split second choice to make for low altitude to give any oncoming pilots the run of the mid altitudes had seemed reasonable in its split second, _he really hadn’t taken proper notice of the large boulders littering the valley floor._

“Give me back the controls.” Ren was reaching for them. Hux would have flipped the switch and given him control but he couldn’t reach it without taking his own hands off the flight yoke — and they were seemingly welded to it. 

They must have just touched something. Clipped a corner of a crag or boulder with one thrust stabilisation vane. Something was suddenly broken and the ship was much harder to control. Hux knew he didn’t know how to correct for it, even as he was trying to correct for it. He should have given over control of the ship.

Trying to get back onto a good line, he overcorrected and the ship rolled and yawed off to the right into a more direct impact with a boulder.

“Shit!”

There was a crunch and a tearing sound and the ship sat back onto its haunches, giving them a sudden sickening view of sky. Hux finally managed to take one hand off the controls and flip the switch to give the _Firecrest_ back to Ren.

Ren tried to power out of the situation but the ship continued to drag at the rear. “Rear starboard repulsor’s fucking gone as well as the stabilisers.” He wrestled with the ship, but it wasn’t having it, not any of it; neither Darth Vader nor Han Solo could bleed through their skill, not enough to keep hull away from solid ground. There was nothing to do but bring the power right down and let her bump and slide to a stop. 

They could hear an awful ripping, grinding sound that was more pieces of stabiliser vent shearing and tearing off. Friction did its work and the crash was finally complete. 

The ship sat at a 10º angle to the horizontal, and for a few seconds, the only sounds were of warning beeps from the dashboard. Hux’s blood ran cold and frantic. His fingernails dug crescents into the palms of his hands. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, his breath tight in his throat and in his chest.

Everything was so very, very fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (5 Sep 2017 — Oops, made a tiny edit to something I'd added for colour which I just realised had boxed me into a rather bad corner for the next chapter)


	11. Into the mountains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the crash, self-recriminations and uncomfortable atmospheres as the two continue their journey on foot. Contains scenes of camping.

“We should go,” Hux said, “and assess damage.” It was as if he could give the illusion of authority and control simply by speaking like the calm General from the bridge of the _Finalizer_ , and as if there were anyone here to whom that illusion would mean anything at all.

Ren was ripping his harness belts from their buckles and was already lowering the ramp by the time Hux had undone his harness and left his seat.

The damage was immediately apparent. There was catastrophic damage to stabilising vanes on the starboard side, and a nasty gouge all along the lower side of the hull, right through the new paintwork. Which hadn’t lasted a bloody _week_. Ren crouched down to look at it, then strode away, fists clenched at his sides, to yell incomprehensibly at the rocks and the clouds and the galaxy around them. Hux crouched too, following Ren’s example, to see what he had seen. And there it was, dangling helplessly from the hull: a repulsor circuit. Somehow it had been wrecked, just as Ren had said when he was trying to get them out of the crash. It would be feasible to mend those broken stabiliser vanes — the broken pieces could be collected and welded back together, and Ren could use his powers to get everything nicely into alignment. But the repulsor circuit was not something that could be repaired in the field.

Ren yelled again. Hux almost expected him to start laying into either the ship or the scenery with his lightsaber. But he simply stood, his back turned, and shouted, cursed and swore.

Justifiably so, perhaps. It was _his_ ship. And Hux had been at the controls. And he had gone and crashed it, into this place, into this beautiful little planet that they had rather been starting to enjoy. This sort of thing didn’t happen. Not to a Hux. Not to the brightest and best of the children of the Empire who had done everything to keep himself away from this sort of situation.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, quietly, only to himself. Then again. “I’m sorry. I’m _sorry_ , alright?”

Ren slowly turned to face him, his face stony like the rocks and crags that surrounded them. “That’s nice to hear,” he said, sounding more like the impenetrable Kylo Ren of old — closed-off, forbidding and bristling with hate.

Hux stood still. He breathed, bit down on this insides of his cheeks and caught himself wishing, _wishing_ , that things could be otherwise. Officers don’t wish: they do their duty. Engineers don’t wish: they deliver. Only children and idiots _wish_.

“I’m fucking _sorry_. I am. I didn’t see the other ship coming: it wasn’t on the radar.”

“You should have given me back the controls.”

“Well, maybe I panicked. Maybe I _fucking panicked_ and didn’t want to take one hand off the control in order to reach the switch.”

“I would have gotten us out of it.”

“You didn’t.”

“I would have if you’d given me the chance. You don’t know the feel of it like I do.”

“Then why the kriffing fuck did you let me pilot in the first place?”

“I thought you’d like it. I thought you’d have a good time!”

“I was having a good time! I was.”

“ _FUCK_! I was trying. I was fucking trying.”

“What do you think I was doing? And I’d have been fine up in orbit.”

“We aren’t in orbit. Shit, I should never have let you. What was I thinking?”

“I don’t know what you were thinking. When have _I_ ever known what _you_ are thinking? A — that’s your fucking department, and B — you’re about as predictable as a bloody supernova.”

“I’m sorry I tried to show you a good time. I’m sorry I ever tried — where the hell are you going?”

Hux was climbing back on board. “I’m going to pack some sodding essentials,” he said, turning and shoving his upper body back out of the hatch. “Because we’re going on a _long bloody walk_ , aren’t we?”

Hux knelt on the mattress, reached into his kit bag and pulled out item after item, neatly, angrily and forcefully placing them one by one in front of him. Socks. Underpants. Base layers. Mid layer. Wash kit. Unfasten side compartment. Medkit. Pocket transceiver set. Unfasten bottom compartment. Waterproof layer.

“How many days?” He sighed and marched to the cockpit to check his maps. Ren was pulling equipment from galley lockers. Hux compared the navicomputer readout with his maps. “We’re here, and we need to be _here_. Ren! We need to decide the route.”

Ren came and stood behind him. “I can see where we are.”

Hux gritted his teeth and sighed. “Would you not say, that we could get from this valley into the next one, and then over _that_ pass, and then trek across _this_ land and past _this_ lake, and up _here_ seems to be a pass, over the higher land?”

“Would seem so.”

“So two days? Or three? We should be able to make 20 clicks a day.”

“You aren’t experienced in this terrain. We get as far as we can tonight. Then through the forest and to the lake. Then we make sure we’re over the higher ground by next nightfall.”

“Which makes three.”

“You _can_ count.”

“Which makes us late.”

“You’ve seen the snow on the higher ground. I’m not taking you through snow and ice at night.”

Hux still didn’t really know why Ren was taking him anywhere, and he didn’t dare ask. The risk that it might prompt him to leave him behind with the rest of the dead weight was too much. But they had a skeleton plan now, with interim goals.

“Does this Taina person know we might be late?”

“I’ll get a message to her. You sort out the rations.”

Hux, dismissed, did as he was told, laying out enough ration packs and heatable food for the journey plus some contingency. He also set aside the bucket Ren had boiled crabs in. His own kit had a small metal container for heating food, and a canteen for water. He’d manage to stash his half-bottle of malt whisky somewhere. The beer would probably have to be left behind. Unless Ren was going to take absolutely everything in his duffel bag.

“Ren!”

“What.”

“We can’t leave identifiable things. Uniforms. Your armour and robe. Take them if you have room.”

“I’ll take them. They’ll make for extra layers at night, if we need.”

“And besides, if I’m going to… I might need my uniform. If I need to make things formal.” Ren didn’t ask him what he meant, but he was sure he knew. If Dion Hux was going to surrender, he would need to do so as a soldier and an officer, and not as a ragged vagabond. Ren didn’t mock him for it, foolish as he must be thinking it, and he was grateful for that. 

He divided their food packs between their bags, packed his own kit bag and changed his jacket for a waterproof layer.

There was still some identifiable kit that couldn’t be carried along. Ren piled it up outside, threw a canister of hydraulic fluid on it all, and set light to it with his saber, before locking and closing the hatch. Then he took a large technical tarp from the maintenance locker, and, using the Force, floated it gently over the ship, and weighted it down with stones. “It won’t hide it for good, but it won’t be glaringly obvious,” he said. “I can’t do the Force-cloak when I’m more than a couple of kilometres away. In case you were wondering.”

Hux hadn’t been.

So they set off, together and alone, making their way back down the valley, from one piece of wild empty land to another.

“Do we have to go all the way back to that round lake?”

“No. We should get up onto the shoulder of the hill. Save some distance and time.” 

They walked on from there without saying much. One foot in front of the other. That was the way this would be done. The little ship was behind them. All the time and money they’d spent repairing it, having it repainted. And Hux really had quite enjoyed installing the new shields. And after all that, the damn thing might never see space flight again. They’d slept together in there. Wept and held one another. It was perhaps, or had been about to feel like, their home. That was gone. 

Furthermore, it had been a special gift — something given to Ben by people who loved him. Something that he’d enjoyed. Better than that damned tea set. Although at least, Hux thought bitterly, he hadn’t broken the ship on purpose.

Ren was a good thirty metres ahead, but Hux heard his voice clear in his mind as if he were right there, hanging on his shoulder. 

_Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s distracting._

_So you’re barging into my head now, to tell me to stop thinking?_

_You’re broadcasting it in waves. There’s no need for it._

_Allow me to_ think _in what I thought was the privacy of my own mind. Please._

They continued in silence, and Hux tried to keep his thoughts to the texture of the rocks and the variety of the plants and grasses around them. Some were thick bladed and green, others coarse and reddish-purple. A variety of green grass grew higher up where the soil was presumably poorer, and a red plant grew in dips and flat places which he had discovered, the hard way, to be wet. His boots had held out but the hems of his trousers were now sodden. He hoped this didn’t count as feeling sorry for himself.

After some repetitious, head clearing, one foot in front of the other marching, he caught up to Ren, and they continued together.

“I did want to say — we probably shouldn’t have been talking about your family,” Hux said. “That was a distraction. I apologise for my part in that.” He felt himself falling back into formality, and felt a very long and painful way indeed from the heartfelt bliss of the night before.

“You didn’t start it,” Ren said, still snippy, and with a distinct note of self pity.

Hypocrisy aside, what he said was true. Hux had always tried to avoid emotions as much as possible, knowing them to be a distraction from hard work and duty, and having been brought up to keep such things behind a nice tight blast door where they wouldn’t bother anybody. 

Ren carried on, bitterly hoarding his pity. “I should have stayed down by the ground. Done more to calm myself.”

Hux bit hard on the corner of his lip. Really, he should have done more to calm him. Spoken more sweetly. Gone to him and held him and let him sit for a while. Like he used to sit quietly with the dog, when he was a tiny boy in that big house, the droids all busy with their duties.

 _Fuck it._ Ren could damn well hear all of that if he wanted.

Rain started to fall. Soon he felt his hair sticking to his head and face in wet tendrils. He combed it out of the way with his fingers and trudged on. At the right hand side of the valley they ascended a few tens of metres to a rough animal track that must have been used by both nerfs and sheep.

Some measure of tedium later, and they were rounding the shoulder into another glen, just as deserted of all but animal life: not even any sign of anyone to herd the animals. Some breeds of animal, his mother had once told him, learn to mind their own territory and come when called. Others need more direct management and conditioning. It had been generally accepted that almost all humans and similar sentient beings fell into the latter category. His own experience with the troops had borne this out.

He, though, had run away from his herd. _You’re supposed to condition this out of them. You couldn’t even sort yourself out,_ he thought, bitterly. _Where does it arise from, out of nowhere, this cowardice?_

His self indulgent introspection had occupied time enough to find him a little way into this second glen. It had a rough beauty about it even through the haze of rain, with scattered pines and rough bushes on its slopes, and a rocky stream in the bottom.

Scant consolation, though, for losing everything.

“Are those caves? Up there on the cliff.”

“Looks like it. There’s a line of them.”

“I do see.”

“We should make for that one.” Ren pointed. “Easiest to climb to. Looks big enough.”

They filled their water canteens and the bucket from the stream that trailed down through the valley’s broad U, and began to climb up. The way was difficult, clambering over large rocks and up steep and precarious sheep tracks, and it had to be slow going in order to avoid spilling precious water. His hair fell in his eyes and he hadn’t a free hand to brush it back. Ren, with his disturbing and unnatural grace and agility, bounded and scrambled on ahead.

By the time he reached the cave, Ren was gathering handfuls of the low scrubby, woody little bushes that grew on the cliff. “For a fire,” he said.

“I’d supposed as much,” Hux said. 

There was enough for a little fire, started once again by Ren’s lightsaber. It would at least give some warmth, and the cave was dry inside.

That was all that could be said for it. The novelty of being planet-side was wearing off. Hux was cold, and damp, in a cave which was dirty and dusty, with who knew what variety of bugs and the like living in it, with grit and dirt that might fall on him from the roof, no bed to sleep on. No bed. To sleep on. Not even the thinnest of foam mattresses. The hope that Ren might magic a bedroll out of his duffel bag was remote. He had what he stood up in and what he carried.

Enough of this nonsense. He had to grab on to something, be decisive. Make a statement of intent. “Change into dry kit, eat, and sleep, I suppose,” he said.

“Indeed,” Ren said, taking off his boots.

Peeling off wet trousers and replacing them with clean dry warm leggings and socks did make him feel better. He took off his shirt and base layer, used them to mop the sweat from himself and replaced them with clean. He’d stink when he put these on tomorrow, but that seemed unavoidable.

Wet kit spread over a rock beside the fire to dry, they sat in silence and looked out. The rain was easing, but the mountains opposite were still veiled in shifting misty cloud. A bare handful of damp square kilometres offered themselves to his gaze. All the excitement and daring and wild ups and downs of the last few days, collapsed into a dismal reality. This is what it was _actually_ like to be out of favour. On balance, might he even have preferred living with the thought that something terrible was about to happen to him, to the feeling that it already had? For this was far worse, feeling out of favour with _Ren,_ out here in nowhere, with a companion who resented you but couldn’t quite bring himself to cast you aside. Had he not valued the luxury of being able to resent one another in comfort aboard a fine First Order starship enough while he had it? Never mind the risk he’d only just last night allowed himself to take. _I love you. I’m yours._ Idiot. _Idiot_. 

Ren spoke up. “I’m angry with myself. Not with you.”

“I see.” Hux looked straight across the valley, not willing to risk a glance.

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“I’d rather think it changes a lot.”

“Our objectives are the same as they were. My path is ahead of us.”

Hux sat and waited, very much not willing to ask if anything else had remained unchanged.

Ren’s hand reached across and covered his. “It _doesn’t change anything_.” 

Hux bit his lip, to hold back a weak smile. “I’ll try to believe you,” he said. “But it’s a lot. These circumstances.”

“I know. I’m trying to understand. It’s a lot for me. But you only have _your_ mind. You don’t have the Force to help you.”

Hux imagined that Ren might not have been intending to make him feel inadequate. Even this new Ren who could be so soft and sweet, even this one had no idea how to talk to people.

“Hey,” Ren said. “Let’s have our New Republic rations.”

“I’m not sure they’re actual genuine army issue,” Hux said, getting up and away from Ren’s burning, longed-for touch, and fetching two packs of food rations. “I think they’re commercial imitations.”

“How would you know?”

Hux sighed. “Do we have to do this?”

“Do the food. As per instructions on the packet. Keep you occupied.”

Hux measured the required amounts of water into the heating container, and added the contents of the largest sachet in the ration pack, a mess of dehydrated vegetables and starch granules. “Do you have one of these?” he asked. “Because, then get it. Unless you’re going to go and strangle a rabbit with your powers.”

“I could do that. Would you eat it if I did? Can be a bit tough.”

“I wasn’t being entirely serious.”

“We could roast it if I gutted it and skinned it.”

Hux pulled a face and stirred the mushy substance in his pan. It was forming up into something possibly edible.

“Look, either go and garrotte an animal or we’ll have to be taking turns to eat.”

Ren went to his duffel bag and sorted through it, returning with his own dented food pan. “See?” he said. “I have done this sort of thing before.”

Hux let him get on with it. He ate his own mushy dinner with a spoon that was too small for the job and more appropriate for stirring tea, and attempted to scoop up the rest with a square of bland flabby carbohydrate. “I wonder if _they_ have to sit through meetings about starch productivity. I expect not. They barely care  — crops go unharvested and factories sit idle in the chaos.”

“When did _you_ ever have meetings about starch productivity?”

“Well, actually not — I just got copied into the minutes.”

He didn’t look to see if Ren was laughing at him.

“I didn’t leave all the beers. Would you like to share one?”

“If you don’t mind. Thank you.”

Ren fetched the beer and cracked it open. “It’ll be cold enough I think”

“How heavy must that bag of yours be?”

“It’s alright. I’m strong with the Force.” He smiled, almost shyly, at Hux. He was trying. They could both try.

The beer was quite nice, and it seemed to make the situation feel a little more like what he imagined it would be like for the commanding officer of a unit of troopers, out in the field, on manoeuvres. Or perhaps a small tactical special forces team.

“We need more wood for the fire.”

Hux watched him go out into the dusky gloom. The sound of the lightsaber igniting was at once exciting and comforting. He followed him out, to where he was dismembering a small mountain pine and another shrubby little tree that Hux didn’t recognise. “I can carry these bits,” he offered. He had to do something.

“Alright.”

The ends of the branches were warm, still, and their sap was caramelised and did not flow. Kept one’s clothes from getting sticky, Hux thought. They fed the fire with a couple of branches and a few thinner twigs.

“Smells a little like gin.”

“It’s probably related to the plants they put in gin. They grow on this sort of planet.”

“How do you know these things?”

“I don’t know. You pick things up. They didn’t teach you everything at your school.” 

Hux sighed at him. “Before it gets fully dark, we should sort out where we’re to sleep.”

“We should stay close to the fire for warmth.” Ren pointed. “Back there is flat, we can lie down there.”

“On the ground? Right,” Hux said, flatly. “Where else.” He looked ruefully at the patch of earth and rock on which he was to sleep. Ren laid down a pair of makeshift pillows, and draped his knightly surcoat down over it.

“Are those…”

“Pads from your uniform jacket.”

“Fine.” It didn’t matter. “I have a thin semi-reflective blanket, that should help keep us warm.” He’d never used it before, or even taken it out of its compressed packet. Of course Ren would be able to tell.

“Well done. Soldier.”

“And a pocket radio transceiver — I should like to catch a radio news broadcast if possible.”

“This again? They aren’t going to read your name out.”

“I bet they bloody used to.”

Dialling through the frequencies, he only found music, and a radio drama. Ren stopped him as he went past a voice station in a foreign language.

“Go back: that’s news.”

“It’s not much use to me.”

“I speak Garic. Thought you knew that?”

Thought he knew. Hux reflected, as Ren listened. He _had_ spoken something that wasn’t Basic to the assistant in the shoe shop.

“Okay,” Ren said. “There’s been a naval battle near Chalacta. Losses both sides. First Order representative issued statement of intent to destroy the Republic.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Attributed to Admiral Beynon.”

“I see.”

“They didn’t go to five minutes of analysis about _whatever happened to that General Hux, we used to hear a lot from him_ , if you were wondering. Not this time. Local news was mostly about what a good trading year they’ve had.”

“Well, I’ll take your word for it. Wouldn’t have to, if they spoke Basic. One galaxy, one language.”

“No mention of anything that could be tied to us. So that’s positive.”

Hux switched off the radio and settled, as much as he could, onto the floor. Sleep, and unconsciousness, would not be a bad option.

Ren lay behind and shuffled in close. “See,” he said, “we need to be close for warmth.” He tucked an arm over him, and Hux held his breath for a moment, unwilling to deal with how badly he wanted to hold on tight. They stayed still and silent for a while, not acknowledging anything, until Ren’s voice came murmuring from behind. “Would you let me in?”

“What?”

“Would you let me in? Your thoughts. You feel guilty. Afraid. I can sense it.”

“I’d rather not. I don’t know.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“I know you won’t.” Hux sighed. “Okay. It can’t make things much worse, can it?”

The pressure wave flooded through his head. He felt a sudden dread.

“You’re imagining my father,” Ren said, out loud. “But you didn’t know him.”

“I’m going on what I know. Sometimes you have to.”

“My father wouldn’t have been angry in that way. Not like you’re imagining. Annoyed, yes. He’d have yelled a bit and complained. But crashes happen in sport.”

“That wasn’t sport.” _And sport is wasteful, anyway._

“Everything’s wasteful to you. Oh…”

He could feel Ren going deeper. Breaking further in. He let him, so it wouldn’t hurt and so there wouldn’t be more long roundabout conversations.

“I see now. You’re thinking of _your_ father.”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

“Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m trying. I am.” He found he was holding tightly on to Ren’s hand now.

_I don’t know you well enough. If you’d let me in then I’d see._

“You’ve seen plenty.”

“Fair. I did see something,” he said, and paused. “I saw you were afraid. Afraid I didn’t love you any more.”

Hux felt the wound. A direct and compromising hit. “It’s not as simple as that. You make me sound stupid.”

“It’s exactly as simple as that. It hasn’t changed anything. I meant that.”

“Don’t pretend now that everything’s alright. You’re still sad about the ship. I know you must be.”

“I am. But only sad. Not angry with you, precious.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I want to use those sort of words. Want to have what I haven’t been allowed.” 

How like Ren. Never satisfied. Hux let a sigh turn into a weak laugh. “It’s up and down with you, isn’t it, like ship’s gravity’s gone wrong.”  

He stayed quiet for a minute or two, letting the sounds of the night speak for him, until he returned to a previous thought. “I’m sad about the ship too, Ben.”

“I know.”

He felt then that he’d done something right. A tight knot had loosened, leaving behind a warmer, better sort of quiet, in which sleep could come. 

After an hour or two of sleep, Hux woke up, sore and stiff, and turned over, in order to get sore and stiff on the other side. Another couple of hours later, the process repeated itself. This time, he could sense that Ren was awake. 

“Are you alright,” he whispered.

“I’m fine,” Ren whispered back. “I was out of place for a moment. I woke up and thought for a second that I must be with my knights. I tried to sense them, and they weren’t there. It was worrying, then I realised. I’m here, and it’s just you.”

“And is _that_ alright?”

“Yes. But I do miss them. They should be here with me, following.”

Hux reached out to him, a hand on his shoulder under the blanket, and drew himself closer. 

“But he’ll have set them up to abandon me,” Ren said, sadly. “Give them a new master.”

“I’m sorry. Similar story for both of us, isn’t it.”

“It is. I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad it’s you.”

Hux stroked Ren’s back. “I shan’t leave you. You’re still my brave knight. If you want to be.”

“Thank you.” Ren kissed the top of Hux’s head. “It’s a different sort of mission now. We’ll have our revenge.”

“ _Our_ revenge.” That was right. “Sleep now, darling. If we can.” Ren held him tighter, and it was alright, finally. It really was alright.

He awoke yet again, and this time it was getting light. The sky was clearer than when they’d gone to bed, and the air was chill. He put his boots on, stood and went to the cave entrance, stopping to put a fresh log on the embers of the fire. It was now possible to make out much more of the surrounding land. On the far side of the valley, the hills rose up into mountains, high and impassable. The first golden rays of sunrise glinted from their snow topped peaks. Hux scratched the fuzz of his cheeks with the backs of his fingernails, and admired the beauty.

Soon nature called in a more immediate and physical sense. He moved away from the cave entrance, and took a piss up against the cliff wall, shivering slightly at the chill dawn air. Breakfast would soon be in order — another selection of warm mush and synthetic meat.

Back in the cave, Ren stirred, then sat up and began to stretch.

“Sun’s rising,” Hux said. “There’s enough water for breakfast and hot drinks.”

Ren stood up and performed another series of stretches — a normally private performance, Hux supposed, which he was honoured to be able to see. “You should stretch your legs too,” Ren said.

“Yes, alright.” He stretched his thighs and calves and back, before setting some water to boil.

The ration pack he chose had a sachet of crystals to make a sweet, semi-acidic, synthetic fruit tea. “This is what we had at afternoon break when we were at school, on the _Progression_.” 

“So you are used to hardship,” Ren said, squeezing nutrisust paste onto a freshly risen lump of self-forming bread. 

“Well, yes, quite. And I worked very hard to stay as far away from it as possible. Whereas you, with your private tutors and royal banquets no doubt…”

“It wasn’t like that.”

Once done, they burned the detritus from their meal, and dressed in their kit from the day before. Ren shouldered his bag, and Hux tied his scarf around his neck and slung his blaster rifle over his shoulder. 

A descent brought them back to the bottom of the valley, and the mountain stream, where they refilled their water canteens.

Onwards they went, over grass wet and glistening with dew, towards a promised pass at the top of the valley. The way turned into a narrow rocky path which climbed via zig zags up and up.

His legs ached as they approached what surely had to be the top. His body felt a little warm with exertion, but only enough for him to remove his scarf and loosen the fastening of his jacket. He glanced at Ren in an attempt to see how he was dealing with the climb. He was not unaffected, despite the use of his powers to bear some of the weight of his heavy bag. Good.

It took a little longer for the slope to flatten out, and then they were finally there. Behind them, the green and purple valley, descending and trailing down to what eventually would have to be some meagre outpost of civilisation. To the west, those high rugged mountains; and to the east, more ridges and valleys. Shaping up ahead of them was a barren sort of terrain of low grey rocks that ought, according to the map, eventually give way to some sort of forest.

They walked on. 

“I haven’t seen many ships,” Hux said.

“We’re getting close to the no-fly zone. Round the corner of that hill we should see where the protected area starts.”

“I suppose that has its benefits: we’re less likely to be seen.”

The open terrain played host to a cold wind. Hux put his scarf back on, and reached into his pockets for his gloves. The fine leather, appropriate to a First Order officer, sat ill at ease with his stolen shirt and jacket, old Empire issue micro-fleece gilet, and brand new civilian boots. But beggars could not be choosers. Ren had his gloves on and his old cowl around his neck.

“You look nice,” Ren said.

“You think?”

“Getting a little rough about the face. I like it. The outdoors suits you.”

“Your hair is in a dreadful state. Did you even comb it?”

Ren made an offended face.

“Your cowl looks right, though, somehow. I suppose it’s part of how I remember you.”

Another couple of kilometres went by, under their feet.

“We’re on the right path. I can feel it.”

 “The map would suggest so. Set to hit key project milestones.”

“Are you making a project management joke? That’s very sweet.”

“Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“Yes. I think it is.”

Rounding the corner of the hill, they could finally see the forest. The boundary between it and the rocky ground was sudden, abrupt, discontinuous.

“That must be a fence. Hope it’s not electrified.”

The fence, built, they supposed, to keep grazing animals out of the forest land, was not electrified, but it was high and sturdy. Two hundred metres downhill, though, on the other side of a small mountain stream, was a gate, set high up, with a metal ladder to reach it. Both men easily managed the crossing of the stream, though Hux got the slight impression that Ren would have liked to help him across, as if he were some helpless soft handed noble from a long ago fairy tale.

The forest was not dense, being made up of red-barked pines, a few taller firs, and more of the evergreen bushes they’d seen. Here and there stood a tree covered in orange berries. Probably poisonous, Hux thought, wondering if he had a copy of the Stormtroopers’ Foraging Manual on his datapad. 

They stopped briefly for their own food: protein bars, nutrisust paste, water. It was warmer in the forest than up in the open, and warmer as they descended. As they made their way through the undergrowth, something about the scene became more and more familiar — the trees, the feel of the place, perhaps the light. Ren had removed his cowl and was walking faster now, and Hux upped his own pace to keep up. 

Over the crest of a hill, a lake came into view. That was their agreed stopping off point for the night. They’d find some shelter down there. As they approached, the sense of familiarity grew. It was nothing like the scenery Hux remembered from Arkanis, so he _shouldn’t_ feel such an uncanny sense that he’d been here before. 

Pine needles underfoot and pretty bushes bearing dark berries. A cool, pleasant breeze. Older trees distributed evenly, with younger trees in between. The sound of running water — a larger stream nearby. He _had_ seen this before.

“Down there, closer to the shore. That’d be a good place to make shelter.” Ren turned to him, his eyes shining. “You go and gather some dry wood for a fire, and fetch water. I’ll make a start on the shelter.”

It was real.

He gathered dry wood from the shoreline, and piled it into a good shape for a fire. On the way to gather water, he wondered whether he was in some kind of trance. Was he on autopilot? Seemingly not, as he picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. He didn’t remember doing that in the dream. Filling their water canteens, he heard the throaty hum of Ren’s lightsaber again, and turned just in time to see a small tree topple to the ground.

It was real. Dreams did, after all, come true. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the dream from [ The General's Dreams (ch2)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7685461/chapters/17510758) is coming true as Ren foresaw it.


	12. A little house

“Careful,” Hux called, as Ren started to slice into another tree. He was, it turned out, doing things a sensible way, cutting a notched slice and then cutting through. The tree made a pleasing sound as it hit the forest floor.

 He thought he’d better find out what Ren intended, in case he needed project planning assistance, or structural assistance.

“So, what’s your plan of construction?”

Ren pointed to two small trees nearly three metres apart. “Those two trees — uprights. Lash a long pole between them, horizontal…”

“For a load bearing beam,” Hux interrupted, keen to reassert his structural and mechanical knowledge, “and then lay poles to the ground, or to a log wall?” 

“A low log wall.”

Hux remembered, from the dream, Ren making walls of logs. It seemed right.

“And thin poles and branches for a roof. It should be stable.” 

Ren chose a pole, took his lightsaber again, and carefully cut two notches into it, to match the two tree trunks that would make the shelter’s uprights. _Measure twice cut once_ , Hux thought, with concern. For his part, he’d better be getting on with the cordage. He slid his knife from its sheath, cut into the bark of another tree that Ren had felled, then pulled off the outer layer of bark with his hands, and, as he’d done in the vision, peeled long thin strips of the inner layer away with the knife. He loosely plaited them into what would be some quite strong cordage, and tugged them in his hands to test their strength. The job was easier once he’d put his gloves on, though he cursed as sap dampened the leather.

Ren continued cutting and stripping logs, and made a low wall of logs at the back and sides of the shelter. He was, just as in the dream, hauling the logs around with his own body strength: soon he was sweating, mopping his brow and taking off his shirt.  His body glistened, strong, magnificent and desirable; and Hux sighed and blinked softly at the glorious sight. Ren, too, had his gloves on to aid him in his work, and this only added to the striking beauty of the picture.

“Your turn to help, Hux,” Ren said.

Hux brought his attention back to where he thought it ought to be. “With the cord? It’s strong, but will it do for this? I don’t suppose you’re carrying carbon rope.”

“No.”

“Shame. A squad leader would be carrying rope. But still. I suggest we double up with —“ and he indicated some of the shrubs higher up on the hill, —“some of that stringy woody stuff. Or what about roots? I nearly tripped on some roots when we were getting down here: they seem rather strong.”

"If you like.”

He cut some long stringy strands of root.

Ren held the long notched pole up at just below head height, with some help from his Force powers, and Hux had to admit that the notches were cut in the right place. Hux twined the cord around in several figures of eight and tied it, then followed it with a couple of loops of tree root. Together, and only getting in one another’s way a few times, they laid several thinner poles to diagonally bridge the gap between wall and beam, then wove branches in between them to make the start of a roof. Thicker, needle-heavy branches discarded by Ren lay on the ground, to be gathered up into loose bundles, and arranged on top in layers. Another few poles and a partial covering of branches made a canopy.

Hux peeled his gloves off, and stood back to look at the completed project. It was really rather impressive.

Ren, his shirt back on, took him by the hand and brought him to stand just under the sloping roof. “There,” he said. “I've built you a little house.”

“You did.” Hux laughed, smiled, put his arms around Ren’s neck, carried away by the mad euphoria of it all.  He remembered the dream’s retelling and not being able to believe that Ren would ever say such words. And between then and now, he’d heard him say words even more improbable. “We built it together,” he said, and that was somehow even better. He kissed Ren’s wonderful smile, and felt his own heart leap like a hundred victories. “You _did_ do most of the work. Thank you. Thank you again.”

“Thank you, too,” Ren whispered, their noses rubbing together. Ren’s nose was greasy, his forehead and top lip damp, and Hux didn’t mind it, terribly much. 

“Time to get this fire lit,” he said, slowly disentangling himself. “Would you care to do the honours? I’m sure I have a fire starting kit, but it would be silly not to make good use of your weapon.”

Ren was only too pleased to hold his lightsaber close to the bark and moss that Hux had used as kindling. Flames sprang into life. “Did you know,” he said, “it’s much, much harder to get ignition from a traditional lightsaber.”

“I’m not tremendously familiar with them, you know. Beyond the basic theory.”

“A traditional saber has a smooth blade, with no turbulence or instabilities.”

“Ah, so only a thin heat atmosphere around the plasma? Of course.” The blade would need to be extremely close in order to raise an object’s temperature, and would cut and singe the kindling, not ignite it. Hux might have given some small consideration to the physics of the lightsaber, back when working on plasma containment and targeting for the Starkiller project. At that point in proceedings, his relations with Ren were not of a character that would have permitted much, if any, discussion between them on the matter.   

“So,” Ren said, “the instability that makes some consider this weapon crude, is the very thing that makes it useful in this instance.”

Hux squinted and scratched his neck. “Is that some sort of clever analogy?” 

Ren didn’t reply, but was already finding thin twiggy branches. These were cut, with Hux’s knife, so as to make a tripod with a hook from which to hang the bucket and boil water. Ren was rather good at all this, it turned out, and distinctly pleased with himself about the fact.

“Soap,” he said.  “Give me soap. I'm going to wash, in the lake.”

“Won't it be desperately cold?”

“Desperately,” he said, stripping off already.

Hux followed him to the lake, with the soap from his wash kit and a tightly rolled microfibre towel. Watching Ren begin to wash himself, he did think that this would make it easier and more appealing to pay some attention to Ren’s lovely body, later, perhaps after the sun went down. He went back to the hut, removed his clothes and weapons, and took himself, over pine needles and pebbles, back to the water.

“I’ll check you for bugs,” Ren said, as Hux hugged himself to keep warm. “And you, me.”

“What? What bugs? Bloodsuckers?”

“We walked through rough bushes, which can carry bloodsuckers. You were fairly well covered up, but – here, let me see.”

Hux submitted himself to inspection. The entire concept felt degrading, like he were some Stormtrooper who had returned from a hostile planet, about to be placed in quarantine, perhaps. But the reality of it, and Ren’s careful touches and close interest, was not so bad. Just a little cold, sitting there on a rock at the edge of the lake.

“How is your shoulder healing,” Ren asked, inspecting the site of Hux’s blaster wound. 

“Well, I think.”

“You won’t need a bacta patch now. Start with some stretches and strengthening exercises — the muscle wants to grow back.”

Hux rolled his eyes. “I’d rather not have to take advice on physical culture from you.”

“Who better?” He chuckled and patted Hux’s leg. “You do me now. Check around the back of my neck, especially.”

“What am I looking for?”

“A tiny black insect, like a seed, attached to the skin. Or a larger, yellowish one.”

He rummaged around behind Ren’s hair, which was getting rather lank and stringy. “Are you going to wash your hair?”

“It can wait until tomorrow.”

Hux supposed the water was rather cold. “I don’t see anything, except your normal moles and dots.” And that lattice of scars.

“Good.”

“You didn’t tell me there were bloodsuckers. I wouldn’t have traipsed around so carefree if I’d known.”

“They aren’t venomous in these climates.”

“How do you know?”

Ren rolled his eyes. “I have a _considerable_ amount of planet-side experience, in all sorts of terrain. We study this sort of thing, as Knights of Ren — the ecology and biology of places we might find ourselves. It isn’t wise to be caught out by lack of knowledge.”

“I’d never thought of you like that.” 

“No. You hadn’t.”

Ren ducked in to the water again and rinsed himself, then clambered out, leaving the soap atop a rock. It was Hux’s turn now. After dunking himself in the water, causing a rapid intake of breath and a decisive retreat on the part of his balls to the safety of his groin, he sat on a rock and very quickly soaped himself before dipping again to rinse. He got out, careful on the smooth rocks at the water’s edge. Towel. _Towel_.

“Towel!”

Ren met him half way with the towel. He stood by the fire and dried off, before dressing again in fresh underpants and last night’s kit — sitting on a log and picking pine straw and leaves from the soles of his feet before putting on socks and loosely fastening his boots. The day’s kit, and the towel, were hung to dry near the fire on a frame of twigs. 

Ren had gone to fiddle with something in the hut — Hux could hear branches swishing. He sat by the fire and started the process of making tea from a sachet of powders.

The sun was getting low in the sky, and the light on the trees on the opposite side of the lake was golden. 

Ren came to sit near him on a low flat rock. “I like it here.”

“I do too. I miss the Finalizer, of course. But I do rather like this.” He got up and took the bucket off the heat, and carefully poured water into a battered metal drinking mug, on top of tea and milk powder.

“It’s peaceful. And it’s good to take you out of your environment.”

Hux dipped a biscuit in his tea. “I think we’ve been good soldiers today. And you’ve been a good whatever it is you are.”

“Do I get a biscuit?”

“Yes. You do.”

Hux stepped away from the fire, into the clearing, and sipped his tea. Staring out over the flat water of the lake, he considered. He had gained something of great value, he knew, and experienced something inexplicable and miraculous. But he had lost so much. Thousands of soldiers under his command. The reins of the galaxy, almost in his hands. The finest and most industrious minds of the First Order, working under his leadership to accomplish truly great things. And he couldn’t get it back easily, not without what would amount to _years_ of biding his time and manoeuvring. 

Everything he’d been raised and schooled for on one side of the balance, and on the other, a treasure he never knew he even had the chance of possessing. He wished he could compare them, calibrate them somehow. But it was impossible. He had had his achievements and his career, and now he had the experience (wonderful) of loving the most singular and incredible creature in the entire galaxy. He had not given up the former for the latter. He had had the former stolen from him, and been gifted the latter.

It was not remotely the way things should go.

Birds chattered and called. A flock of small birds with long tails swooped over the lake, and up into the trees.

“I can pick them up, in the flow of the Force, you know,” Ren said, approaching him. “There are discernible individuals, but what you mainly get is the sense of the flock as a whole.”

“That’s how things should be. I think.” He felt Ren looking at him, and continued. “I expect it’s that way with very well drilled troopers. That’s the aim, in any case.”

“It can be.”

Hux felt odd. Not uncomfortable, but like he might be if he thought too hard about Ren perceiving everyone through the Force, if he chose, about what he ought to feel about wanting to be a part of something versus wanting to be special. It seemed like unsteady ground.

“What’s for dinner,” Ren asked. A biscuit, unsurprisingly, was never going to be enough. 

Hux felt relief at the return to the mundane and practical. “Don’t know, let’s see. Get all your rations out and we’ll choose.”

Ren went to his bag and pulled several ration packs out, started reading the labels and sorting into two piles. “Nerf stew is good, but nerf hash I’d rather not.”

“Picky.” Hux looked again at his own packs. “This says _mally balls in sauce_. And that it’s ’ _suitable for Abednedo dietary requirements_.’ Whatever those are.“

“That’s what you got out of that vending machine. Those cheese lumps. Mally balls. And the Abednedo need a lot of dairy protein, I think.”

“Hmm. They were acceptable, those, though it’s the execution rather than the concept. You know, I wonder who has the contract for those vending machines.” The quality had been surprisingly good. There were good vendors and suppliers out in the galaxy, ready to be tracked down.

“Hey, does that pack have shuura fruit flavoured drink crystals? Because I’ll swap you for tea.”

Hux nearly snapped “No swaps! Get what you’re given,” before realising that there was no reason at all not to indulge in swaps between the two of them, to get what would suit both of them best. He took another packet out of the side compartment of his bag. “Oh, of course, I brought this. This is a fancy civilian one. Let’s treat ourselves.”

“What is it?”

“Red shaak stew. It looks good, if the image on the outside is accurate.” He checked the instructions. “Place bag in water up to the mark, bring to boil, cook by immersion, eight minutes.”

“Is there enough — I’m hungry.”

He _had_ been working hard and needed feeding. “Have a ration pack as well. Have two. There’s enough for contingencies.”

Ren spread two sachets of nut paste onto a cracker, and rehydrated a packet of synth-chicken and broken noodles. 

He’d eaten the ‘chicken’ and noodles by the time Hux said the stew was ready, and they dished it out and dug in. It certainly had a richer flavour than the military rations and had more identifiable vegetable pieces. It satisfied.

Ren went to wash the eating things in the lake, and Hux fetched his little bottle of whisky. He stood and watched mist sweep across the water’s surface.

“Pass me that mug,” he said, as Ren came back. “Nightcap before bed.”

“So you got what you came for?”

Hux poured a little whisky into the mug. “What do you mean?”

“Your whisky. You wanted to come here for the whisky you like.”

“Yes, I did say that.” He took a sip and relished the familiar warm sweet spice and hidden fire of the whisky. “This is one of my favourites. They distil it probably 150km from here, and we get it via a delicate relationship with some helpful individuals in the planetary government.”

“Corruption, you mean?”

“Relationship-building.”

“Such a hypocrite. It’s breathtaking.”

“Oh, come _on_. And besides, _I_ bought this in a legitimate marketplace, with money that _you_ had stolen, coerced and defrauded from various sources.” He held the mug out to Ren. “Are you much of a whisky drinker, Ren? I must say I don’t have the best picture of your taste in alcohol.” There was that oddly stinging liquorice spirit favoured by the Knights of Ren, and a confessed fondness for fruit liqueurs, but that couldn’t possibly be the whole story. The man seemed to appreciate food a little better than the average Stormtrooper might, and quite probably a little better than Hux did.

Ren took the mug and sniffed it. “I didn't take much interest in your grey market spirits. I was supposed to forswear the old ways.” He took a sip. “No, I like this. Like dried fruit and spice. Not like the rough stuff you get in cantinas.”

Hux wondered when in his life Ren had known rough cantinas. The thought drifted a little way, back towards his fantasy of a roguish space pirate who might sweep him off his feet and lay hands on him in a dark corner. Hot hands and a long, lively tongue… He gestured for Ren to hand the mug back, as a step towards getting a grip on himself.

He took another small sip, and relished it.

“I like sharing with you, it turns out. And being here.”

Ren sat down next to him. “Good.”

“Did you know this would happen? Getting here, everything that led up to that?” 

“Broadly, I felt it could happen. The Force shows us things and…”

“What I mean is this,” Hux said. “We hadn’t planned to take this route. If we hadn’t crashed and had to come up these valleys, we wouldn’t even have come this way.”

Ren rested his elbows on his knees, wrists crossed, and leant his chin on their apex. “True.”

“So did you know we would crash the ship? Seemed to come as a surprise to you at the time.”

Ren shook his head. “I didn’t know that. The Force doesn’t work like that. We only see fragments, and strong feelings.”

“What does that mean? This is all far too vague.”

“Listen to me, and I'll tell you. As we got closer, I started to sense that this might be the place. This morning, I felt we were on the right path. The closer we got, the more sure I was. And here we are. It worked.”

“It did, although I’m not sure what _it_ is.”

“I gave you my vision and it worked. I didn’t now this would be exactly how and where, but it’s all right. I feel more sure than ever.”

“The dream did pan out. I’ll give you that.” 

“And _you_ chose our route. You brought us this way. You’re part of this. It’s destiny.”

“Well, I used to think my destiny was something very different to this, but what do I know?” He took another sip of whisky. “I was looking at you, while you were cutting logs, just like I did in the dream”

“Looking at me?”

“Looking at you. You know what I mean. What I like to look at.”

“I know,” Ren said. “And I see you, as you were in the dream — or rather what I saw from what the Force showed me. You _do_ have a little hint of a beard, but I realise why I thought your hair would be long. It’s just loose around your face.” He reached out and brushed some of Hux’s hair over his ear. “That’s the way I like it. All undone. What you never show to your soldiers.”

“Hey,” he said, standing up. “I made a bed for us, for later. Come and see.”

He went with him, into the hut. It was a low improvised mattress, made of branches, draped once again in Ren’s outer surcoat.

“More comfortable for you than the floor.”

Hux bent down and pushed at it. The branches gave and flexed back.“Not bad actually. More teachings of the Knights of Ren?”

“Pine boughs on the bottom, the flat boughs on top. I don’t know the name of the tree.”

“That’s good work. Thank you.”

“Now see. Wait.” He appeared to beckon out of the open front of the hut, and soon two large round stones came as though called, towards them. “Don’t touch,” he said. “They’re hot from the fire.” The stones hovered above the bed. “Get a spare shirt or some underpants, to wrap them in.”

Hux did, and got his blanket out too. The hot rocks were duly wrapped, and placed under the blanket.

“Give them ten minutes. You’ll have a warmer bed.”

Hux slipped an arm under Ren’s. “Our little house, hmm?”

“Not quite an imperial palace.”

“No. But maybe it’s a start. I have ideas, still. Plans.” _I’d be a good emperor, for you_ , he thought. 

“But before you can think about that, you know what has to happen.”

They sat down again.

“Yes. I do.”

“We’re going to get rid of him,” Ren said. “I’m more confident than ever.”

Hux took a breath and let himself admit. “I caught myself wanting to, you know. A few times. But I could never take the risk.”

“That’s what keeps him there.”

“I could manoeuvre around other people. Well. Up to the last few months. But without being able to mobilise against him, you’ve just got to keep on. Using _him_ as the ultimate threat against _them_.”

“Not the other way around.”

“If I’d been able to, I would have. For a short while I thought if I ever did, I’d have Kells on side, and with a bit of work I’d be able to get Shenlam and Gideek. But you can’t trust. You can _never_ trust.” 

“It’s a nest of snakes. No better than the New Republic.”

“Now, come on, Ren!”

“No, look at it straight. Look at your feelings.”

“Oh, balls to my feelings.” He scratched his nose and sighed. “No, you are right, of course. You are. _Ha ha_ — the very fact that I’d very _very_ tentatively sounded Kells out, and asked Shenlam a couple of extremely vague questions; that of course means they can cite that as evidence of my disloyalty.”

“Precisely.”

“And so the young Hux ceases to be the golden child of the old Empire, applauded for his technological marvels, and becomes a rotten old liability. And it all happened under my nose and I _bloody well let it_.” 

“You couldn’t have prevented it. It’s simple,” Ren said, the glow of the fire catching his face. “When you get to realise what he’s all about. He got fed up with you because you answered back to him and you had your own ambitions. And you tried to second-guess him — to stay a step ahead. He doesn’t like that.”

Hux knew it was true. “It’s a fucking insult is what it is.”

“So we end him. It suits you, it suits me and it suits everyone.”

“Including the Jedi girl.”

“Yes. Including her.”

“Ren, what are you going to _do_? Ask her if she wouldn’t mind awfully knocking off your old boss?”

“I know she would want to.”

“But she hasn’t yet. Is she just biding her time, like we are?”

“We aren’t biding our time. Not any more. And anyway, it was personal between me and her the last two times.” Ren hung his head, and Hux peered at him. “She was trying to avenge my father. They were friends.”

“Oh. Well, of course.”

“I don’t blame her. She’s very—” he shook his head— “noble and determined. Grandfather thinks that’s all very good. He likes her. Sometimes I…”

Hux put his arm around Ren and squeezed. “Hey now. He likes you, doesn’t he? I like you.” _You’re Darth Vader’s special boy and everyone loves you,_ he thought, half mockingly. But it was true.

“I know. I’m going to do it. We’re going to end him. And after that, we can decide what comes next. For you, and for me.”

“What _is_ it that you need her for — is it just Force business? A question of numbers? Two better than one?”

“Yes, partly. But I think she sees things in a battle that I don’t.”

“That how she keeps beating you?”

“Ha. Yeah. Thanks.”  Ren sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “There are things she can’t do, though.”

“So you’re going to work as a complementary team,” Hux said. “That’s nice.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“Maybe a little. I hope she agrees to your plan.”

“I think she will. Skywalker will be all for it, of course,” he sighed, “and the Resistance will encourage her.”

Hux twitched.

“It’s a chance to decapitate the First Order. Of course they’ll go for it.”

Hux barked a quiet sarcastic laugh. “ _We_ decapitated the _Republic_. Yet the war still goes on.” He thought, and sighed. “Makes it all seem rather futile. But my part in it worked. Even though I’d rather have — you know — the test schedule, and all that.”

“I know.”

“I suppose we’ll build again. _Yet_ again. It can be done. I’ve been giving it some thought. It’ll need some manoeuvring, but it’s a chance to really shape things, put the right systems in place.”

“First things first.”

“Yes. I know. I’m getting ahead of the agenda.”

“He won’t be expecting us to both move against him. He still thinks he can turn her.” Ren laughed. “I thought _I_ could turn her. Or maybe I always thought I could ally with her. I don’t know any more.”

“What’s she like?”

“Like I said. Fierce and determined, and absolutely seething with the Force.” He scratched at the ground with a stick. “I hate it. Hate her, really, but I have to ally with her.”

“You used to hate me.”

“It’s not the same. She took something that was mine. Something I was supposed to be. And everyone loves her, and — no, it isn’t like with you.”

Hux was embarrassed to admit that Ren’s words were on target. He _was_ insecure and jealous. “I don't mean that I think you'll run off with her just because _we_ hated each other and now we, well, don’t. Just that I want our story to be _our_ story.”

“It is.”

Hux wandered towards the lake again. To the east, a three quarter moon was rising. Its light would make it easier to see around camp. He rather liked moonlight, from a nice big moon like the ones Hegaria had. Starships were never completely dark on board, after all.

He went back to the hut. Ren was moving the hot rocks around in the bed, making it ready for him. The fire was close enough to the hut to have warmed the interior a little, too.

“We’d best be setting off as early as possible tomorrow. I feel the weather may get worse.”

Hux took off his boots and got in. “This is nice.” He placed his socked feet on the hot rock — it was pleasantly warm. “Ah, yes. Much better to have warm feet.” He lifted an edge of the blanket. “You get in, too, then.”

Ren slid in and immediately cuddled him close. “I know you’re happier when you’re warm,” he said. His hand followed a familiar path from Hux’s back, to his waist, then onto his buttocks and thighs, kneading and fondling. He made a contented sigh.

“Seems like you’re happy,” Hux said.

“Mmm,” he said, “Fresh air and water, the flow of the Force, and this.” He squeezed Hux’s buttocks. “Your lovely little bottom.”

“Ren!”

“I’ve always liked it. You know that.”

He did, really.

Ren kissed him, going slowly in order not to catch his face too hard on Hux’s scratchy scruff of beard. Hips tilted and pressed against hips, and teeth grazed against lips.

Hux was getting hard, with the soft kisses becoming more open, and the warmth that came from the body against him, and with a large hand caressing and stroking his buttocks. He pushed more firmly against Ren, and kissed him a little more insistently. He moved his own hand from Ren’s back and unfastened his own trousers, then started working on Ren’s trousers. 

“I washed partly because I was thinking that maybe later, we might be…”

They rubbed together, separated by two thin layers of cotton, and took shallow breaths against each other’s lips. Ren’s hand reached in, palming Hux firmly through his underwear, before pulling it out of the way and taking full hold of him. Hux sighed, a faint whisper of a moan in his throat, and tasted Ren’s lips and tongue, kissing and slipping over his mouth. Their legs were overlapping, wrapping together.

Hux wriggled his hand in closer, fighting with waistband and fabric to get Ren’s cock out and stroke it. They fell into slow rhythm, breathing into each other’s mouths, kissing soft and wet, until Hux broke off. “Does this count as outside,” he said, suddenly.

“Not quite.”

“I’ve never done it outside. On a planet.”

“I have.” The brief pang of something that flared in Hux’s chest and Ren seemed to detect it. “Long time ago, though.”

“Ben,” Hux said, wanting to feel that he was _his_ again, in the best and newest way he had. “Darling.”

“Oh. Yes. _Yes_.” His kisses were tender, trembling but strong, electric. And his hand was warm and powerful and just right. “Want you. Got you,” he said.

“It’s so good,” Hux whispered. “You make me feel so good. Please don’t stop.”

“I won’t. Don’t you, either.” 

“I won’t.” He rubbed his thumb, then the hollow of his palm, over the slick head of Ben’s cock. “You get so wet,” he said, thrilling with the daring of saying these things, like he’d never said them before. “I love it.”

Ben kissed him, his tongue wet and hot too, eager hot moans and noises coming with it, and he wasn't going to stop stroking and jerking him. Faster and more breathless, now; half-kissing his mouth and his face and his neck, pushing jerkily into his hand, feeling hot, hearing himself moan and sigh. Loving him and wanting him, and it being so right to be here with him.

“Make me come, darling, won't you?”

He felt himself get closer, and Ben, too, breathing hard and rough, on the edge. And then he was coming, with a noise like a little animal, and panting into Ben’s sweaty neck, pulling him over the edge too, and whispering it helplessly over and over. “I love you.”

He made an effort to wipe himself clean, and lay down again.

“It’s — it’s like you’re brand new. But still the same.” Arms folded around him again. “I wish it had been different. That’s stupid isn’t it? But I can’t help but think…”

“It isn’t stupid.”

“I’m sure it is,” Hux said. “But we do stupid things now, it seems.”

“We were stupid then. I had you in my arms, back then. I had it. Then I had to go.”

“We didn’t know what we had, then. Neither of us.”

“No. I didn’t know. Except I _did_ , somewhere.”

“Did you?”

“I didn’t understand. Didn’t know that it would be good for me.” He shifted on the branches. “Or I was afraid that it would be. Afraid to even contemplate it.”

“Oh, I think I _knew_ it was good for you. But, you see, I had quite enough responsibility already, without trying to make a better man out of you.”

“It was a mess. I couldn’t… you know that.”

“I know, darling,” he said, stroking Ren’s cheek. “I know.”

“Surely I could have realised sooner. Come back to you. It shames me. But I didn’t know. I was too afraid.”

“I’m still afraid,” Hux confessed, as if he had no defence at all, as if he wanted to give up all his weaknesses.

“Don’t be. It’s good. It’s real. It’s right.”

“At least I’m trying, now.”

They lay side by side on the bed for a while, listening to the wind in the trees. Hux turned to face Ren again, reaching a hand out to his shoulder, admiring the contours of his face in the low, mixed light.

“I’ll tell you something. These are, in fact, some of the happiest days I’ve ever known.”

“Even after yesterday?”

“Yes, even though. We managed to resolve things didn’t we? And moved forward, and now we’re here.”

“We are. And I’m happy too.”

“Good. That’s good. I really don’t think I’ve truly loved anyone before. I didn’t know I knew how.”

Ren kissed him. “You do know how. You do.”

“I don’t always get it right. But I want to.”

“I know. You still have your doubts. You aren’t sure what to call me, in your mind.”

“You're still just ’Ren’ to me, most of the time.”

“ _Most_ of the time. But you think of me as Ben when we’re making love.”

“Don’t _say_ that!” He felt himself blush.

“Alright, having sex.”

It wasn’t for lack of truth or accuracy that he had objected to the term.

“Being _intimate_ ,” Ren said. That was worse. He nestled close, anyway. Intimacy was for underhandedness. Plotting. So. Perhaps it wasn’t so inappropriate.

“You’re always so warm.” He felt himself starting to tend toward sleep. “My brave knight,” he mumbled. “Keep me safe and warm.”

Hux was awoken at early dawn by a noise. Something was moving around near the camp. “What the _hell_ is that,” he whispered, and sat up, as quietly as he could. Some creature was definitely nearby. He ought to reach for his blaster. Or the rifle, which was propped up in a corner.

Crashing through undergrowth and into the clearing came an animal — a little smaller than the sheep they’d seen in the valleys and with rough hair and spines covering its back.

“ _Ren_. What the hell is that?”

Ren sat up and peered out at the creature. “That’s a wood hog.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Shouldn’t be. It’s just foraging.”

The creature nosed at the ground under a bush, and seemed to be eating something.

“Are there any other large animals roaming through forests that you think I should know about?”

“Cold climate forests have all sorts of creatures. I’m not an expert on the ecology and fauna of Hegaria in particular.”

“Is there _anything_ ,” Hux hissed, “that you know of, that might eat unwary soldiers caught sleeping in their camp? Anything that might be, say, hot on the trail of a wood hog?”

“I don’t think anything eats wood hogs. They have defenses. Ah, Ikos Ren is the resident expert on this. I would defer to his knowledge.”

“He’s not exactly resident at the moment, is he. I might as well say that Lucia Dunn is the expert on proton torpedo deployment, or Berlan Havord is the expert on systems engineering. Neither of them are here, and Havord’s bloody dead.”

“Alright, Hux. No need to be… like that.”

The wood hog huffed and trotted away.

“I’m going to get up and put more wood on the fire. We’re awake now, might as well be up.”

“No harm in starting out extra early,” Ren said.

“I agree. The sooner we can get started on the tough ground, the better. Can we get more certainty on what the weather conditions are going to be?”

“No Holonet reception here. Try your transceiver.” Ren got out of their bed and put his feet into his boots. “I’ll carry water this time.”

With his blanket around his shoulders, Hux stoked the fire. Ren brought back water. Hot drinks would soon be made, and breakfast taken.

And then, the final leg before reaching an actual civilised place again.


	13. The high pass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a destination is reached

They were already three kilometres from camp. It was overcast and damp, but getting lighter.

Hux thought of the little log hut, and realised with regret that he had no last glance memory of it. They had simply walked away, and not looked back. Practical, and unsentimental. The kind of pragmatic attitude that got things done. But if he _had_ looked back, and committed to memory the little house where they’d sheltered and kept warm — ah, this kind of thinking was foolish.

As the land started to climb toward the pass he stopped and took out his maps to assess how far they had to go, and how they should tackle the ascent. Looking at the hill there appeared to be some sort of path working its way up to the pass. The climb was long, and the path indirect. There were boulder fields which might present the opportunity for short cuts, and the map suggested that they should stick to the left of a particular large outcrop. He’d assess again when they were at closer range.

 

_Hooooooo…_

 

A low animal call sounded, coming from somewhere on the far side of the lake. 

 

_Hrrroooo…_

 

“What was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Right, well that’s helpful. Is it likely to be aggressive or dangerous? It sounds large.”

Ren gave a wry chuckle. “I think _I’m_ the most dangerous thing in a five parsec radius.”

Hux rolled his eyes.

“Look over there. There’s movement between the trees.”

“There is.”

Whatever it was, it was getting closer. Hux pulled his quadnocs from a pocket in his waterproof jacket, and focused on an area of widely spaced trees. He saw it. Large quadriped, mottled fur, ears like a cat with long tufts of fur.

Hux slipped the strap of his quadnocs over his head, and shouldered his rifle. “I don’t have a completely clear line of sight. But if it breaks cover and starts coming for us, I’m shooting.”

“There’s no need. I can hold it off, if necessary.”

“Use the Force?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

The creature fully broke its cover, and started pacing slowly towards them, ears flattened and body low to the ground. Hux aimed, with the rifles rather rudimentary sight, and prepared to fire. 

A more distant _Hoooooo_ echoed from further down the lake.

The creature turned, and began to move towards the call of its comrade, enemy, or mate. Its tail flicked and lashed behind.

Hux breathed out, and lowered his weapon. “I suppose that’s that,” he said. He turned to Ren. “We should keep an eye out, in case we see one again. I do worry we look a little like prey.”

On the way up, he started thinking again about strategy, and it was time to open the topic for discussion between the two of them.

“We need to consider how we’d tackle this. When and where to strike.”

“Alright then.”

“I’ve been thinking about the defences we — you — might have to face. From a practical and military point of view, rather than from your side of things.” 

They kept striding along, as the path, ill defined as it was, wound its way uphill, and the trees got sparser.

“I know more about base defences, fleet strengths and weaknesses,” Hux said.

“Have you ever been to his hidden base?”

“Yes. Once.” Ren seemed mildly surprised at this. “But I know the defences from files. I know the files are accurate — at my level of security clearance they can’t not be.”

“It could be more complicated than you think.”

“Granted, but in any case, I think we’d have a better chance there than on his vessel.” They trudged further up the rocky slope and Hux continued. “We _both_ know how to get to the moon. Things will largely depend on which ships are guarding it.”

“Okay.”

“The fleet has strengths and weaknesses. I know that, admirals argue about it, but it can't be denied that the Enduring is a weaker ship than the Termagant, just to speak of guard frigates. And when guard vessels are due to rotate out — see, I know the weak points because I worry about them.”

“Hmm. This is useful information.”

Hux wanted to reply that _of course_ it was useful information, and it was damned _good_ _for him_ that it was useful information, because he could buy his safety with it. By selling out his comrades to the enemy. Or at least, selling out the secrets of a portion of his comrades, in order to secure the greatest breakthrough for the galactic common good.

And he wouldn’t be selling out all his comrades, if he could avoid it.

“The Finalizer,” he said. ”They are still loyal to me there. That loyalty can’t have been erased in a single week.”

“They are very loyal,” Ren agreed. “They respect you.”

“A single Star Destroyer against the rest of the fleet — that was ridiculous, you were right. But as a _wedge_. As a _lever_. Applied at the key point…”

“You think you could win them back?”

“It's not impossible. It's really not. A few loyal officers could do a lot. And to be quite honest, all of alpha crew would be all-in.”

Ren thought for a moment as they marched on. “I don't know your communication channels.”

“It’s _which_ channels to use, isn’t it? Who would we go through? These people have friends, relatives. But it has to be someone we can trust.”

“Huh. Trust.”

“ _Partially_ trust. Come on now. See, I'm thinking. Perhaps someone with a relative who could be contacted.” He paused and thought. “Zetelheid Mitaka. I think that's her name. Not ideal, but we could. Potentially.”

Ren turned his head towards him. “Who is Zetelheid Mitaka?”

“You recall Dopheld Mitaka? On the fast track program. He did a twenty week stint on the bridge weapons firing console.”

“Mitaka. Weapons console… Yeah, vaguely. Round eyes, small mouth, pale olive look?”

“That’s him.”

“ _Fuck_! I nearly fucking strangled him that one time.”

“Ah, so you _do_ recall.”

“Shit! That was all to do with the damned scavenger girl. I _knew_ it was something. So, yeah, lost my rag — and, _fuck_ , it's turning out to be bigger than I even thought then. Bloody Rey. She was out there then. Fucking up my life.”

“Well, anyway. Dopheld Mitaka is extremely loyal to _me_ , a man who has never once strangled him or any other officer under my command, take a hint, Ren.”

“And this Zetelheid?”

“His younger sister. She works in civilian administration. Last I knew, she was one of my sister’s little minions.”

“So you believe the sisters may aid the brothers?”

“Oof. I fear _this_ brother’s actions may have already damned his sister. Ellis might have had the knock on the door already. I, uh, I don’t like it, Ren.”

“No. You were never particularly close, though. If I remember right.”

“No, not these days, but, look, she’s my sister. We grew up together on the exile starships. She was the one I always had to measure up against, and we did stick together sometimes, when Father was being… the way he could be sometimes. We don’t get on precisely, not like some do, but… I don’t have to enjoy the thought of her being put through the mincer. Or her little ones. It doesn’t seem right.”

“Hmm.” Ren seemed deep in thought for a while, as they climbed further up. “I never thought of you like that. Having a family. It’s…” he sighed. “Families are difficult.”

“They are.” 

They clambered over boulders to cut past a long switchback of path.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

The path trailed in small stones and pebbles through a field of boulders. They had climbed a good distance from the forest.

The sky was darkening, over to the west. The texture of the cloud seemed to be more uniform, flatter; a thick dark grey. Peaks and valleys that had been visible were now hidden.

“It’s coming,” Ren said, “whether we like it or not.”

“That’s atmospheric weather for you, I suppose,” Hux said, in what he half-realised was some needed attempt to feel knowledgeable, in control, authoritative.

Ren gazed out at the oncoming front. “It’ll be snow.”

Hux remembered how the sky would darken on Starkiller before a snowfall. The flat, low, thick grey of the cloud did rather look like it.

“It may not be cold enough for real snow,” Ren continued. “Might fall as wet snow or ice.”

Visibility where they stood was not so bad, but it cut off dramatically at about two kilometres. “It’s definitely coming this way. I suppose we keep going.”

“We have to.” It became quite noticeably colder. “I think you should put another layer on,” Ren said.

“Alright, alright.” Hux put his rifle on the ground and took off his bag. He pulled off his outer layers of clothing and swore at the cold before adding another shirt and a mid layer. He pulled out a thin knit cap, Special Forces issue, and put it on, tucking it over his ears and adjusting his scarf. Ren was fastening his pleated tunic. “You’re wearing that.”

“Yes.” He pulled his jacket on over it, and added his cowl on top.

“You look a state. But I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t,” he said. “We need to keep going.”

 

_Sit rep: precipitation in the form of wet sleety snow, waterproof jacket holding up well._

_20 minutes later: precipitation in the form of large flakes of snow. Waterproof jacket performing well, trooper pants starting to fall slightly short of expectations. Legs freezing fucking cold._

 

The snow thickened. Visibility in the area was not good: flakes drifted in front of the eye. The best way to keep one’s way was to look to the ground, take care over each rock, and keep Ren always in close sight. Hux had to call to him from time to time to make sure he didn’t get too far ahead.

The path such as it was, and such as it was followed by Ren, took them into a zone of wind-scoured rocks.

With conditions at near white-out, they took shelter between two rocks, out of the prevailing wind. The shelter was not perfect, and a biting breeze swirled around the corners of the rocks, bringing flakes of snow with it.

He remembered the snow on Starkiller, of course. How they might put off a trip to an outlying precinct until the worst of it died down. He’d be transported by snow speeder, with the hood down, in what he fully realised now was relative comfort. He remembered how he might step out onto a balcony or gun emplacement to admire the cold beauty of the planet and the sheer scale of his and his engineers’ achievement. And how, one day, during a break between progress meetings, Ren had shepherded him out onto one of those gun emplacements, argued with him in what he had long since realised was a desperate, hopeful, clumsy sort of flirtation, and then kissed him for the first time. How they’d carried on like the whole thing was a series of skirmishes, a war of manipulation and leverage, and not, _for example_ , the great defining love story of his life. What fools indeed.

“Do you remember?” Ren must be feeling it too.

“Of course I do.” And Ren kissed him, gently on the cheek, his nose cold.

There was no chance of making fire, but they could pick a self-heating ration packet and let it heat up, sheltered from the cold in a fold of Ren’s pleat tunic. While they waited for it, they sucked nutrisust paste straight from the tube.

“Couldn’t you be doing more with the Force?”

Ren raised a hand, and held back the flow of cold air. “Better?”

“Yes. Better.”

“I haven’t been making so much use of it, other than the basics.”

“Any reason for that?”

“I’ve felt I need to make more use of my practical skills. Maybe to impress you. But the other reason is, I’m being careful.”

“Really?”

“Keeping him out. I have been since I turned from him. I don’t want to risk letting him back in. And with the strong flow of the Force, it can sweep you away. Like a river.”

“Oh, OK. But you said the Force was flowing between us.”

“That’s different. It’s personal. Just you and just me. It’s not… look, if I used my full powers, really threw the energy around, it could open channels I don’t want open.”

“You stopped that pulse cannon. When we fled. I was impressed by that, and it did seem to take it out of you.”

“Because it needed a great deal of Force flow, and at the same time I had to keep the flows steady and not let anything open up. Both at once – that’s what was exhausting.”

“I see.”

“Same goes for this new, weird link I have with Rey. I don’t want to open that up and have her flooding in to take the legs out from under me. Sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand why you have all these links. I thought…” _I thought what we had was special._

“Our bond is different. Where did I run to? Straight to _you_. I tested the bond with you, because it’s personal. It’s not to do with the wider flow of the Force.”

“I’ll pretend to understand. I don’t know.”

“It comes from _us_. We made it by ourselves.”

The self-heating ration packet was ready, and they took turns, holding the packet in their hands and squeezing the hot food straight into their mouths. Needs must, Hux supposed.

Ren sat quiet for a couple of minutes. “We have to get going,” he said, abruptly. “I meditated very briefly, to give myself the strength to see the way.” He gripped Hux’s arm. “And you? Are you alright?”

“Legs are cold. Best get moving.” He knew the simulations and knew what he had to do.

They took a biscuit each, and some hard sugar. Hux put another hard sugar in his pocket.

Onward, then.

“Take great care underfoot,” Ren said, as they stepped back out into slightly improved weather. 

More difficult memories arose as they trod through thicker snow on the ground, this time of finding Kylo wounded and helpless in the snow. The shuttle had landed, and he’d dashed out with the troopers, chasing towards the signal from Kylo’s tracker. That figure, seeming as pathetic as he was normally commanding, a horrible flower of blood blooming underneath his left side. At closer glance, visibly fighting to keep himself alive, but with this awful look of hopelessness in his eyes — as though even if he succeeded in not dying, it wouldn’t do him any good. Hux and his troopers, all following their training and doing what needed to be done for any fallen soldier. Although of course they took even more care with their Knight Commander than they would for a regular comrade.

And then, Hux had felt something he shouldn’t have felt, and wasn’t _that_ the whole story in miniature? He’d touched his face, hells alone knew what the troopers must have thought, if they’d even let themselves notice. _“I’m going to look after you. Stay with me. Don’t leave me.”_

Ironic that as it turned out, Ren had spent most of this little adventure looking after _him_. Providing him a disguise. Protecting him from bounty hunters. Keeping him warm at night. Building him a rough shelter, and being so proud of it. Hux hoped he was fulfilling at least some of his side of the balance.

That look in Ren’s eyes. It had been _fear_. And he had gone, been stolen away, to face that fear. But now they were going to take away the source of that fear. He was going to help. Be of use.

They seemed to be trudging against wind and snow on the high point of the pass for a long while, though it could hardly, by the map, have been more than a kilometre or two. Even with his scarf wrapped around his face, Hux’s cheeks burned.

They were surely approaching their destination. Taina’s Place. Abode and business of this Taina Ahlan, Resistance agent. Shelter and civilisation, and the place where he would… what? Where he would be arrested? Was this woman going to clap him in binders as soon as she saw him? Most likely. Or, if he preferred, he could lie down and die right here. Arrest it was, then.

Or perhaps it would be relatively alright. The innkeeper would welcome them in, give them a bed for the night, treat them as perfectly normal guests, and then… what? Law enforcement would turn up in the morning, arrest them, and hopefully deliver them to the enemy, whereupon he would trade First Order secrets for his life.

He could almost laugh.

He was still fairly sure that he wasn’t going to formally surrender, fully and properly, unless it was to General Leia Organa in person. He felt they owed him that.

There, in the distance, there was a light. They got a little closer. There really was a light.

“There. We’re here.”

With renewed strength they walked, on tired feet and cold legs, towards the light. It resolved itself into two lights: a large external lantern, and light coming from a low window in a fair sized house. Soon there were joined by a third light, moving with a slight wobble toward them.

“Who is out here on a night like this?” It was a woman’s voice, rough-sounding through the wind; and as they got closer Hux could see her, clutching a lantern. She was bundled against the cold in thick trousers and boots. Her thick tunic had bright pattern of purple and orange, illuminated by her lantern, and her cloak and hat were dark. 

“Taina!” Ren shouted. He paced toward her, and Hux just about kept up. “The little bird,” he said as he reached her. “The little bird is going home.”

“I can see it’s you,” she said. “Come in.” She glanced up at Hux as he followed her through the gate, past a sign that read TAINA’S PLACE. FAMOUS INN. CLOSED FOR WINTER. “Two of you, huh. I was only fully expecting one.”

“I made it as clear as I could,” Ren said.

“I know you have to speak in riddles,” the woman said, guiding them towards her front door, “so I’m not complaining too much. But it could have been more on the nose. Thought you could have been two, or one. But most likely one. Shift yourselves, get inside.”

Inside the porch, it was a little warmer. There was no wind. He was on enemy ground and it was a blessed relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've recycled Dopheld Mitaka's sister Zetelheid from another story (The First Order Army and Navy Club) because that story is sort of… a fun silly story with characters from this story verse, although it isn't 'canon' per se in this story verse. So the thing with the croquet and tennis (and the conflicting first kiss) probably didn't happen, but there _is_ a Miss Mitaka who didn't join either the Army or the Navy, but went to become a civilian administrator under Mrs Veltin.


	14. Taina's Lodge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A welcome that is at turns warm and cold, a very important communication, and a point of no return.

“The storms don’t usually come this early in autumn. You were unlucky to get caught.”

“We’re here now.”

“That you are,” Taina said, taking off her cloak and hanging it up, followed by her outer tunic and boots. Finally, her thick purple trousers were peeled off to reveal a thinner pair underneath, and she slipped her feet into a pair of short indoor slipper boots. “I expect your boots are wet, too.”

Hux got the message, and bent down to remove his boots. 

“Let’s get you into the main part of the house, in the warm, then we’ll sort you out.”

She showed them through into a reception area that reminded Hux of the entrance hall of the junior school house on Arkanis, where Ellis had gone to school. It was maybe what the junior school house would have been if whitewashed and decorated with what seemed a peculiar mix of very cheap old furniture and probably very expensive newer furniture. To one side of a long wooden desk there was a wall of safe lockers, and to the other, a low lavender coloured sofa.

Taina herself appeared a little older than Hux, about forty or so, of medium height and tending very slightly to stoutness around the middle. She had pink cheeks and a soft face, but she didn't seem soft, though, in the way she spoke and moved. 

She pressed a button on an old looking comm speaker set, bashing it vigorously with a thumb before it hummed to life. “See-Four! How are you doing up there, pal?”

A droid’s voice crackled back through the speaker. “Almost finished room eight, Ms Taina.”

“Good. I need you down at front. The men I was expecting are here.”

“Men, plural?”

“Yes, men, plural. Two.”

 Hux had noticed that next to the old comm speaker there was a perfectly modern console screen, which he tried to sneak a quick glance at.

Taina looked smartly up at him and Ren, and patted the desk with her palms.“Right,” she said. “See-Four will be with us in a minute, and he’ll put your wet things in the drying room. Your coats and boots.” 

Ren and Hux took off their outer layers, and Hux took his map and datapad from a jacket pocket and stowed them into an already tight side pocket of his bag. 

He felt the steam of sweat rising from his collar. He was ever more aware that he stunk of sweat and, under his clothes, of worse after the barely-wiped-clean hand jobs of the previous night. The quicker he could get freshened up, the better.

“What size shoe? For house slippers.”

“Forty four,” Hux said.

“Erm, forty eight.”

She produced two pairs of house slippers, each in a pale blue plastic bag. “For wearing indoors.”

The sound of lightly clanking footsteps announced the arrival of a droid. 

“This is C-4BK,” she said, by way of a one-way introduction to the silver and dark grey model. “See-Four, would you take these gentlemen’s coats and boots to the drying cabinet, while I get them sorted out here.” 

The droid picked up their things and click-clanked away again.

“Right, gentlemen,” she said, briskly. “You are not _paying_ guests, but you are _my_ guests. Which means a welcome, though I may not be in full professional mode.”

Hux nodded.

“This is an old fashioned house, which means no personal weapons indoors. I provide safe boxes here,” she pointed to the rack of lockers behind the desk. “Biometric and code locked, so I shan’t be able to get into them. So, if you wouldn't mind.”

There was no choice, Hux could tell. He held out the Kanji blaster rifle, and Taina gave it an interested eye-over. “You've been having some adventures. I assume you didn't pick this up in a pawnbrokers,” she said. She opened one of the larger lockers and indicated for him to stow the rifle inside. Next, he undid his holster and handed over his own heavy blaster.

“You as well.”

Ren undid his holster belt from both waist and thigh, and removed it with both blaster and lightsaber hilt still attached, the lightsaber hilt hanging like an embarrassment. He placed the whole ensemble on the desk, then unclipped the hilt and placed it gently to the side.

Hux glanced up at his face: sad and proud, his gaze moving between Taina and the lightsaber.

“I know,” she said. “I know. Do you want your own safe box or are you alright sharing? Ah, no, have your own.” She unlocked another. “Come and put it in the safe yourself.”

He did, with a shivery sigh.

“It's just for tonight,” Taina said. Then she turned back to Hux. “That's not all, is it.”

Hux felt he ought to be honest. He felt there not get much further if he weren’t. It was not a familiar or comfortable situation. “There's another in my bag. I’ll get it.” He wondered if this woman might have use of the Force. He’d ask Ren, later.

He put his officer's blaster in the safe, next to the other two. He noticed she was looking pointedly at his wrist. So it was like that. He rolled up his sleeve and showed his knife, before unbuckling its sheath and handing it over. Finally, he sighed, bent at the waist, rolled down his sock, pulled his second knife out of its leg sheath and handed it over.

“There you are. I get used to knowing. Now, set a numeric code, and add a finger print if you like.”

The droid came back. “Where are we putting these gentlemen?” His voice, when not filtered through the old comm speaker, was fairly well modulated. This added weight to Hux’s initial impression that he was a model dating from about ten years ago. 

“Hmm,” Taina said. She patted her hands on the desk. “I should explain. The standard bedrooms are being stripped out — See-Four and I have been busy. We’ll be refurbishing them over the off season. My brother and his wife are coming up next week to help.”

Hux nodded.

“I hope they make it. See, even I wasn't expecting the bad weather to come yet.” She grinned and shrugged. “Ah, well, anyway. I’d prepared a single for you,” she nodded at Ren, “with the big deluxe double as a fallback. So, you’re in the big double.” She looked at them both, her eyes seeing, evaluating. “I take it that’s right.”

“It is,” Ren said.

“See-Four, take the gentlemen’s bags up for them. Room three.”

The droid picked up the bags. “And I shall clear out room nine, unless you need anything else,” he said.

”You do that,” Taina said. She then addressed Ren & Hux again. “Once you’ve freshened up, I’ll have dinner for you. Beans and meat, if that’s alright.”

“That’ll be splendid.”

“When you come down, sit yourselves in the front lounge. Ring the bell to let me know you’re there. See-Four or I will find you.”

“Will do.”

The droid led them upstairs, and they followed in socked feet, carrying their complimentary slippers still in their packaging.

“Here you are, sirs.”

The droid deposited the bags just inside the door, and with a flourish of one shiny arm, showed off the rest of the room: a huge bed with white linen, a large view screen, a couch, a wardrobe and a pretty wooden desk. There was a window, closed by automatic shutters, and a door led to a spacious refresher area. The droid showed them the facilities. “Full wet room shower, and bath tub,” he said. “Control panel for water temperature is here. There’s endless hot water.” What with the extravagant size of the bath tub, there better well had be, Hux thought.

“Thank you.”

“Sonic cabinet here, for your wet and dirty things.”

“Thank you very much.”

The droid nodded and left, closing the door behind.

“This,” Ren said, “is the honeymoon suite.”

Hux giggled. “Really?”

“Yep, absolutely. Says so here. ‘Room Three, our honeymoon suite’”

“Oh, bless her for calling it ‘the big double’. That was very considerate, actually.”

“Why? To save you the embarrassment?”

“Maybe a little,” he said. “Anyway. Hot water should be the next item on the agenda. And let's put these things in the sonic cabinet for a clean.” He pulled off his clothes, checked the pockets, and put them in the cabinet. Ren did the same, and he set the sonic for a full clean cycle.

The shower area had two stools on which to perch and wash oneself. Hux fetched his wash bag, and lined bottles up on the floor. “Look, they give you scrubbing brushes,” he said.

“Oh, but of course. Does it fit your standards?”

“Good enough for me,” Hux said, setting the temperature for his shower. “And for the noble prince?” He switched on the shower and felt the wonderful caress of warm water. 

Ren sat beside him on the other stool, under the wide fall of warm water, and scrubbed his sides, legs and feet. “Do my back,” he said.

Hux took a brush, a bar of soap, and dutifully scrubbed.

“Wait, is that… is that my shampoo?” Ren asked, puzzled.

“Oh, uh, yes.”

“Did you just get it from my bag?”

“No. I had it with me.”

“Since when?” Ren picked up the bottle and lathered his hair. The scent was lovely — the warm spice that had always just suited him so perfectly.

“Since… since I may have had a slight moment of weakness and procured a small bottle from requisitioning. Under the counter.”

“Did you use it?” He pondered, perhaps drawing something with the Force, though Hux didn’t feel it. “No, you didn’t use it.”

“Stop it. It doesn't matter.” He hadn’t used it. He had, in his moment of weakness, lifted the lid and breathed in the scent. It had been almost perfect, lacking something that was of course Ren himself.

Hux picked up his own tiny shampoo bottle and washed his hair.

“It was silly, but I kept it. Even though I wasn’t _constantly_ indulging myself in fantasy and memory, it seemed even more foolish to throw it away. I brought it with us because I didn't know if you had yours.”

They dried themselves in warm fluffy towels. Hux put oil on his elbows and heels before dressing in clean clothes and complementary house slippers, while Ren dried his hair.

“Better,” Hux said, embracing Ren. “Now let's go downstairs. Get fed. Interrogated. Whatever.”

Ren held him tight. “I don't know how it's going to be. I think she's going to be nice to us. Then the difficult part comes.”

Hux broke the embrace with a pat to Ren’s back. “Does she know who I am?”

“I didn't say who exactly I’d be with. Just an asset. But she probably recognises you.”

“Good job I started growing a beard then. Well done everyone, I do _so_ like wasting time.”

“She may not say anything. She knows you're a valuable asset.”

“So, play it by ear?”

“Yes.”

“Marvellous,” Hux said, with resignation. “Ren, does she have the Force? You’d tell me if she did, wouldn’t you?”

“Not really. Her senses are good, but not what would be classed as Force-sensitive. Though some say the distinction is arbitrary. Most talents involve the Force in some way or another.”

“Right.”

“No Force-strength at all, though.”

Just as Hux thought they were about to leave the room and go downstairs to their food and their fate, Ren brought a box out of his bag. He unlatched it, showing it to be full of packing material which he carefully peeled aside.

He lifted an object out and placed it beside the box.

“Oh, hell’s bells, not _him_ ,” Hux muttered.

Ren knelt in front of the relic. “We got here,” he said. “We made it. Thank you for guiding us here, Grandfather.”

“I didn’t know you’d brought it,” Hux said, quietly. “Him.” Although, on reflection, it had been one of the only things Ren took with him, when he left.

Ren stayed kneeling for a few moments before he spoke. “Eventually, I’m going to take him back to Endor. That’s where Uncle laid him to rest and gave him back to the Force.”

Hux felt there wasn’t much he could say to that. And it was time they made their way downstairs.

 

* * *

 

“I expect this is the lounge.”

They entered, slippers shuffling on the carpet, and lights came on automatically. A fire burned in a central stove. The walls were lined by sofas in a range of seat heights to suit different species, and sofas and chairs stood in three separate groups around low tables. The lights illuminated maps and art work on the wall — seemingly depicting the same mountains that the atmospheric conditions outside were currently doing their best to conceal. On a small table just inside the door there was a bell.

Ren rang the bell, and they waited, slightly awkwardly. The wind was faintly audible through the thick-curtained windows.

Taina reappeared through a door on the far side of the room, her brow pink, and a dark blue apron tied around her middle.

“Not quite finished in the kitchen. Come through and be sociable with me for a moment. Or you can stay in the lounge if you like.”

Hux had the sense, honed through decades of practice, that the first option was the one he ought to choose. 

Taina led them, with a sturdy, purposeful gait, through a couple of doorways to a kitchen. It was somewhere between a home kitchen and a mess kitchen, of a size that might prepare food for up to fifty people, if you had the staff. Hux was trying to work out the capacity of the inn. From the number of safe boxes, and a glimpse at the console screen on the front desk, he reckoned the inn had ten rooms and a capacity of 20-25. He had no idea why he was assessing all this. Probably trying to keep his mind busy.

“We provide evening meals for guests — traditional food, nothing excessively fancy. One cook, plus me and See-Four. Cook’s gone back down the mountain so you’ll have my side of the home cooking. Big pots of soup and dumplings, beans and salt meat.”

“Sounds very nice,” Ren said, on what sounded awfully like his best behaviour. Hux had almost never seen Ren’s best behaviour before.

“In summer we’ll grill a whole sheep out on the terrace. The guests love that.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Today, it’s ‘same soup, smaller pot’, as the saying goes.” She chopped a large bunch of green leaves, lifted the lid on a pot from which a glorious aroma of meat and spice arose, and tipped them in. “It’ll take just a little while now, so I’ll give you some bread, to put you forward.” The lid went back on the pot, and she set a wrist timer before cutting several slices of bread from a round loaf.

So there _are_ weapons in the house, so long as they’re kitchen knives, Hux thought.

She put the bread into a toaster and switched it on, then fetched two glass jars from a conservator. The contents, russet red and deep black, were duly smeared across quartered slices of toast and arranged on a plate. More paste on bread, after two days of paste on bread; but this example was considerably more appetising than the ration packs they had relied on. 

“Shall we go back to the lounge,” she said. “Appetiser, drinks, and all that?”

And so they trooped straight back again, to the sofas and the warm fire.

Taina walked them past a side table on which stood several glass decanters. “Drink? I can make you something — this is often See-Four’s area but I can fix you a gin and something, whisky and something, wine, light beer?”

Hux accepted a gin and tonic, the tonic and ice cubes coming from an automated dispenser.

Ren asked for an Andara brandy zip, half-sweet. Taina raised an eyebrow, and fetched a bottle of Mandalorian orange liquor from the lower deck of the drinks table. “See-Four would do this with a little more style, perhaps,” she said, pouring brandy, orange liquor and fruit juice into an electric agitator.

They sat on two of the small sofas. It was unavoidably slightly awkward. Conversation covered the predictable topics.

“Where did you stop on the way up?”

“The first night we slept in a cave. The second, we made camp in the forest.”

Hux ate his paste on toast (salty, flavourful, dark) and sipped his ice cold gin and tonic.

Ren described their journey in a little more detail, noticeably avoiding referring to Hux by name.

Taina pursed her lips and stared at them both. 

“A long way to run,” she said. “ _He_ knows what he’s about, more or less” she said, indicating Ren but looking straight at Hux, “but _you_ don’t.”

Hux bristled. “What do you mean?”

“In this line of work you learn to read people. And in my younger years, not that I’m so very old now, I worked for an old, _old_ lady who was the best at the game. Taught me all kinds of little things to look for.”

“And do you usually analyse your guests to their faces? Call them stupid?”

“Not the ones that pay, no. You two lads are rather a special case.”

Hux picked his glass up and put it down again without drinking from it.

“It’s not _stupidity,”_ Taina said, _“_ It’s _not knowing_. But of course _you’d_ want to mix up the two.”

Next to him, Hux could hear Ren take a hearty sip of his drink.

“You’ve stayed a few steps ahead, I take it,” she said, addressing Ren more than Hux now. “No more run-ins?”

“One guy,” Ren said. “Working through the Mirov clan. Pretty third string.”

“Mm-hmm. And where is he now? Or where did you leave him?”

“In a garbage dumpster. Made it look like an accident, I’m not an idiot.”

“People find bodies, and questions get asked,” she said, in a warning tone.

“Oh, and there were two or three in a boat, as we stopped off down on the coast.”

“And?”

“Sunk them.”

“And who were they?”

“No idea. Might even have been legitimate fishermen.”

“They were acting very suspiciously,” Hux cut in. 

Taina looked flatly at him. “You’ve left enough of a trail,” she said. “They’ll be coming for you, by now. Properly. Either _your_ lot,” and she waved a hand at Ren, “or _your_ lot,” and she pointed at Hux. “Yes, I _know_ ,” she said. “I know _exactly_ who you are. And I’m not entirely happy about having you under my roof. Just for the record.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to be.”

“ _Your_ lot don’t bother me too much,” she said to Hux. “Soldiers are soldiers.” He felt deeply insulted, but it was very much not the time or place to make a complaint. “But _you people_ ,” she said to Ren, “you worry me. Not so much you personally, not right now, at least. But. You get my meaning.”

“Thank you,” Ren said. “For your trust. It won’t be misplaced.”

Taina sighed, stood up and patted her apron. “I think we’re getting ahead of our own agenda here. Food first. It’ll be ready now, so come and eat.” 

She took them to a dining room and adjusted switches on a control panel. Wall lamps gradually illuminated, and in the ceiling a thousand tiny lights sparkled, imitating the night sky.

“Fancy, isn’t it,” she said, once again the proud host. “This is the small dining room, for groups who want to eat separately, or for meetings.”

“Meetings?”

Taina laughed, a somewhat flat chuckle. “Three day ‘working retreats’. People pay a lot of money to come up here, have a few team meetings and some fresh air. Bonding exercises and the like.”

“How ridiculous,” Hux said.

“Had some people from Lanus-Jiron GLC this summer — took meetings up on the top of Vendas Head, with packed lunches.”

“How ridiculous.”

“And they booked straight away for next year, so that’s money in the bank.”

Hux wondered what kinds of meetings might be held here, and what sort of groups might find themselves staying at the inn at the same time. 

Ren offered to help carry the food from the kitchen. He and Taina certainly knew each other from somewhere, and of course it was just like Ren to have kept that fact in the dark.

They returned, Taina _sans_ apron. The food did smell and look extremely good. Fatty slabs of meat sat among large white beans and strips of green herbage.

In the middle of the table stood a bottle of wine and a jug of water.

“This is, after all, a special occasion. Is it not, _little bird_?” She passed the bottle of wine to Ren for his inspection with a wry smile, presumably at his ludicrous code name. He was, after all, hardly _little_. “A nice party of Umbaran dignitaries gave me a case of this, as a personal gift.”

“Very nice,” he said, and handed it back.  

The wine was delicious — dark berry and liquorice tasting, with a scent of herbs and fine leather, and better than anything Hux had tasted in a long while.

“No droid?”

“He’s busy. If he’s not still moving furniture, he’ll be doing data work. Looking at where we’re spending money and where we’re making it.”

“So your droid is your business analyst as well as your porter?”

“It’s just a little data work. We’ll sit down and analyse it together, later.”

The food was as good as it looked — a rich smoky flavour suffusing the whole thing while still allowing the meat its own flavour, and a glorious soft velvety texture to the fat. The wine complemented it most excellently.

“Your food and hospitality is exceptional, Ms Ahlan.”

“Thank you, Mr Hux.”

He turned away, wounded, and embarrassed at his own reaction.

“Oh, come on.” She raised a glass. “To my exceptional hospitality.”

They toasted her.

“The enemy himself comes to my house, and I feed him good meat and fine wine, give him shelter, even clothe him, what with those slippers.”

“Are we both the enemy?”

“Ben is probably in his own category.”

“Oh,” Hux said. “Well isn’t that just like always.” 

Taina mopped up the ends of her meal with a piece of bread.

“Your ship’s been found. By the way.”

They both jolted. 

“Oh, it’s alright. It’s in safe hands.”

“Why didn’t you say earlier, if that was the case,” Hux asked. Taina was playing with them, and he didn’t like it. She was the boss here, and that was how it had to go, he supposed.

“I had a call this morning from a local guy who does salvage. He’s gone up with his ship and tractor-beamed it down to his yard. Which is already costing you three hundred credits plus fifty credit crash documentation fee.”

“I’ll pay,” Ren said. “We’ve got credits.”

“I’ll pay him and you pay me. To be safe. It’ll come to more if you want the thing fixed, or you can get it picked up as cargo.”

“Did he say how much to fix? It’s only a new repulsor circuit, and stabilisers for one side.”

“As far as you know. I’d say you’re looking at another three hundred at least, probably best part of four.”

Ren pulled a face. “Okay. That could be worse.”

“He’s going to get back to me with the exact damage.”

“And you trust this guy?”

“Don’t worry about security — when you messaged me that you’d been in a crash, I let him know one of my guests had crashed and got themselves down the mountain, and I was handling the situation. Anyone would assume it was an outgoing guest who’d already departed.” She smiled, pleased with herself. “This handover is getting done cleanly if I have anything to do with it.”

“Does that sort of thing happen often? Guests getting into wrecks?”

“Sometimes. People get over confident. On ships, on speeder bikes, you name it. Mountain air makes some people a little reckless at the controls.”

Hux kept his gaze to himself, embarrassed and somewhat resentful. 

Taina laughed. “So you crashed his ship and he’s still speaking to you!”

“There were a few hours where it wasn’t certain.”

“Well. There’s a thing.” She stood up from the table. “Let’s go back and sit in the lounge,” she said. “I’ll bring caf.”

So they did. 

Hux spotted a large format book on a side table. “Is that the visitors’ book? I want a quick read of that.”

He leapt up and flicked through the last few pages, trying to snoop as rapidly as possible. Amongst the clientele were some high profile names from New Republic society. He wondered how many of them had been recruited as Resistance sympathisers within these very walls.

“Right, best not get caught looking.”

He sat down just in time for Taina to enter with a tall jug of caf and three tiny cups. She sat on the spot on her sofa that was closest to Ren, and addressed him. “I _am_ glad to see you. Wish it could have been under different circumstances.”

“These aren’t the worst possible circumstances.”

“No. I suppose I count myself lucky for that, at least. Ha!”

Ren shook his head and looked embarrassed. “I don’t know. I’m sorry,” he said.

“Oh, you’d have torn this place down like the Castle if you’d known more of our activities. I’m not fooling myself.”

“I might have done. I’m sorry. About the Castle, too.” Ren looked at Hux. “That was you as well.”

“What are we talking about?”

“The Castle. On Takodana.”

“Oh. That.” He sighed. “There was a droid, with a map. We needed it.” He shook his head. “That damned map.”

Taina sipped her caf. “I used to work at the Castle, many years ago. Ben remembers me. Don’t you?”

“We used to stop by at the Castle, after races, sometimes,” he said, explaining it to Hux. “Dad, and his pilots, mechanics, race engineers, and me.”

Taina addressed Hux too. “I was fascinated by the pilots and the engineers — I wanted to listen in to all the conversations, and learn about race work. I was 24 or so, and I’d keep bringing his dad’s table the drinks and snacks, just hang around them. I’d give Ben free lemonade or shuura fruit soda. You’d have been about 12 or 13, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Were you running in the Junior section then?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’d done some races. On and off. But with studies and everything… and, you know, other interests.”

“I was commanding fellow cadets at 12,” Hux said. “The thought of being taken on any sort of family outing is, well…”

Taina gave him an odd look.

“I am somewhat interested by the roles you mentioned,” he said. “A race engineer, for example — is that design and ongoing systems management? We never followed that sort of sport, you see.”

“Too common for you?” She laughed. “Yeah, all that; and on race day, analysis of ship performance, race strategy for things like fuel consumption, advise the pilot of how to protect the ship, how to tactically manage systems, all of that.”

“Ah, I get you. This I ask because I'm an engineer myself.”

“I know. Your groundbreaking weapon. We know about that.” She softened, and looked at Ren. “Do you remember Fernan and Uleena?”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “Of course I do. Uleena would be explaining the race work to you and whoever would listen. Fernan was always busy keeping one eye on his pilot. That Dug lad. Besendar.”

“That’s him. He’d be far too excitable, all hands and feet, telling his nutty stories, then he’d have five Weequay beers and fall asleep under the table. Remember when you used the Force to pick his pocket, and Maz came and told you off?”

“I do.”

“She told _you_ off, then she told _Han_ off for letting you do it, then she told _me_ off for letting you do it.”

Hux didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if _he_ or anyone he knew had ever been caught behaving that way. There had been some high jinks among some cadets, but not getting caught was paramount; and for him, even the greatest of care would not make involvement worth the risk. Knowing what the others were up to was quite a different matter.

“It was good times then, really,” Ren said, his voice cracking on the last word.

And then, of course, Ren was crying. Gentle, muted sniffles, but enough for Hux to take his hand, then put an arm around him.

“Come on, sweetheart. It’s alright,” he whispered. It didn’t matter that he was doing this in front of this woman he didn’t know. It didn’t matter at all.

“I’m sorry. He should be here. He could tell the stories.”

Taina leant across and patted a hand on Ren’s arm. “Oh, Benny. You foolish, foolish boy. I’ve got too many questions, and they’re not for now.”

Ren made an effort to gather himself. “I’ll be alright.”

“I don’t _forgive_ you any of it. Just for the record. Certainly not you,” she said, looking at Hux, who kept holding Ren’s hand. She sighed, and looked away momentarily. “I’m willing to admit there is a little more to you than initially meets the eye.”

“I suppose you mean this.”

She nodded. “It might… ah, it’s not for me to say what will and won’t help your case, if you have one.”

His _case_. “I’m going with him. I have information I wish to exchange. We have a plan for a cooperation, maybe short-term, with certain key goals.”

“And you’re going of your free will?”

“Yes.”

She nodded slowly and exhaled audibly. “What you’re doing is a lot better than you not doing it. I just hope you stay safe from your own people.”

“I think the Force is with me,” Ren said. “I think it’s keeping us safe. And guiding me.”

“I hope that’s true, Ben. I don’t know the Force like Maz does. I can’t say.”

“We have a mission,” Ren said. “A goal.”

“Yes. You do.” She thinned her lips and furrowed her brow. “You can make contact tonight, or tomorrow. What do you want? Have you had enough for one day, or would you rather not have it hanging over you till morning?”

“It’d be best to do it soon. Then we know where we stand.”

“And your mother’s people will have time to prepare.”

“Alright.”

“See-Four will show us to the comm room.”

It was all happening. The whole thing was inevitable, really, since he’d decided to accompany Ren, since he’d decided that Ren’s plan was the only one compatible with any of his long term goals. And it had been treason since he’d walked back to his quarters on the Finalizer five days ago, to pack his bags and go. This was simply a process of formalising it.

 

* * *

  

The droid, C-4BK, led them down a set of stairs to a wine cellar. Taina brought up the rear. She then opened a hidden door into a small room lined with comm equipment, and invited them in.

This was going to be it.

“Sit down,” she said. They sat down, on two old chairs at the side of the room. “Don’t move, no funny business.”

“I have detonators,” the droid said. “We’d rather not use them.”

“No,” Ren said. “It’s all going to go ahead. Just… you go ahead. Make contact.”

C-4BK hooked himself into the control panel and adjusted some switches. He keyed in something on a key pad. There was a sound of a connection being made. He then made a series of bleeps — some sort of droid speak that Hux didn’t recognise.

Taina was watching them closely. Hux was fairly sure she was armed.

Answering bleeps came over the connection. Droid was speaking to droid. Maybe a security handshake protocol. Hux heard Ren catch his breath beside him.

The other droid spoke then, in Basic. “See-FourBeeKay, Ms Taina, good to hear from you.”

Ren gasped.

“Good to hear from you too, See-Threepio,” Taina said.  

Hux looked from Ren to Taina and back. Ren was clearly emotionally moved. Taina on the other hand was taking everything as perfectly routine. She was obviously used to speaking to this particular droid who had Ren seemingly so affected.

“Shall we open video channel?” C-4BK asked.

“Video channel open,” said the droid at the other end.

An image opened up and flickered on the screen. The droid on screen was shiny and gold.

“And good to see you,” the droid said. “I understand you have news.”

“Yes,” Taina said, stepping forward to stand next to C-4BK. “Is General Organa available? We need to speak with her in person. It’s very important. The little bird is headed home.”

“Oh!” The droid seemed quite emotional himself. “Oh, that is wonderful and welcome news for the General. Thought I’m not sure what everyone else may make of it. I shall fetch her at once.”

“Threepio,” Ren said.

“Oh!” The droid moved his head closer to the camera & screen, as if to peer into it and make out who had spoken. “Oh! Master Ben! It is you! Surely.”

“It is. May I, Taina?”

“Yes. Come and let Threepio take a look at you.”

Ren stood in front of the screen.

“Master Ben. You look so well. Are you coming home?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m coming home. Please, Threepio, please fetch the General. Fetch mom.”

The shiny droid departed the screen, leaving the connection open. Hux wanted so badly to hold Ren’s hand while they waited. The wait was too long. And too short. Because now he could hear the droid’s voice. “Yes, he is, General. He really is.”

And then, there she was. Short and regal and unmistakeable, his enemy, Organa.

“Ben.”

“General. Mom.”

“Let me look at you. You seem so well. There’s something about you that’s changed. A light that’s come back to you.”

“I think so. The force is flowing differently now. I feel it.”

“Come home, son. Let it guide you home.”

“I will. If you’ll have me.”

“You know I will.”

Ben looked out at his mother, and Hux felt the pain in him from where he was sitting. “I won’t be alone. I have an important intelligence asset with me.”

“Well?”

Ben turned and reached out to Hux. Taina gave him a nod, arms folded. He stepped forwards, into the enemy’s sight, and stood, straight backed before her.

“General Organa,” he said, as correctly and respectfully as he could. “We have common cause. Against Snoke.”

“You want to make a deal with me. You, of all people. The infernal butcher of Hosnian Prime.”

“I am willing to make a full, formal personal surrender. To you, in person.”

He saw the steel of her gaze strengthen. “Go on.”

“You would pursue some sort of process against me. I’m aware of that. But I must help Ben to defeat Snoke. We have the beginnings of a strategic plan.”

“You _must_? Well. This I am interested to hear. And I notice you call him Ben. Is this an attempt to make favour with me?”

“He asked me to. And it gave me great joy to accede to his wish.”

Ben took his hand.

“This is not what I was expecting,” Leia said.

“We don’t expect to be popular.”

“We will receive you both. As prisoners of war — even you, Ben.”

“I know. I understand.”

“I have,” Hux said, “as you would expect, information about the First Order fleet and installations, of the highest possible security clearance. I will share with you what you need to know in order to form a joint task force for the elimination of Supreme Leader Snoke.”

“You're not so foolish as to think I won't ask you for much more than that, Mr Hux.”

“Of course not. We will negotiate in person.”

“We do have a plan,” Ben said. “We’ll need Luke. And Rey.” 

“What Luke and Rey do will be up to them. But know that I want Snoke gone, and so do they.”

“Mom,” he said, “Snoke lied. He lied. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I have been ever since. Ever since.”

“He did lie. I thought you always knew. I should have warned you better, perhaps.”

“He lied, like the old Emperor lied to Grandfather.”

“Ben. I can’t really talk about Anakin. I don’t have it in me.”

“He loves you, mom, he loves you.”

Leia placed her hand to her heart. “There’s — it’s not nothing, but it isn’t really something. It’s too late for him. I’m sorry, but it was too late for him long before you were born.”

Ben shivered.

“It's not too late for you. You’re my son,” she said. “We can still be a family. Just a broken one with missing pieces.”

Hux squeezed Ben’s hand.

“Give exact coordinates to Threepio or Lieutenant Connix. We’ll send a transport straight away. Bring him with you. We’ll work something out.”

Hux felt his blood rushing in his ears, as Taina and C-4BK spoke to a younger woman in Resistance uniform. Their uniforms were so rough and tatty, but the girl spoke as neatly and capably as any of his own officers.

“Commander Dameron won’t be happy, but it’s a code nine, so he’ll have to do without the ship for a day and a half.”

“He’ll cope,” Taina said. “Tell him I said hello, and we’d love to see him up this way one day.”

It was done. The call was over, and they were standing there.

Hux was a little shaky, but he had an un-actioned item on his agenda. He would ask about it, while they were here. 

“Ms Taina?”

“Mr Hux.”

“Do you have a concealed line on which it might be possible to make contact with a person on First Order Home World?”

Her eyebrows raised. “Who, and what for?”

“An office inside the Ministry of Communications. I want to speak to a low level assistant, not as myself, you understand but simply to make an innocuous call asking for the availability of her superior.” It came out in a rush. He himself felt like some lowly lieutenant reporting to a superior.

“And this would be in aid of?”

“The superior in question is my sister, Mrs Veltin. I am concerned for her well being.”

Taina thinned her lips and raised her eyebrows again. “I’m not.”

Hux breathed heavily. “And the assistant in question has family serving aboard the Finalizer, my old ship, who maintain loyalty to me. I would like to open a line of communication. If we are to build a sort of joint task force, they would be the first people I would want on my side. And I feel it is worth planting the seeds now, if we are to reap the rewards.”

“It’s possible,” Taina said. “But it isn’t without risk. I wish you’d said this before we had General Organa on the line. I’d have welcomed her input.” She turned to her droid. “See-Four, what’s the current time lag with First Order Home World? The administrative centre?”

“Let me see… plus six hours.”

“Middle of the night there. Let’s see in the morning. See-Four and I will think of the best way to do this, and if I have to call Central again I will.”

“Okay.”

“After breakfast. And it’ll only be a short call? Less than five minutes?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. We’ll try to find a way. You get your rest. You’re going down the mountain tomorrow, and then, well, you know what’s happening.”

“Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

They were excused. Released. 

And so up the stairs they went, in their slippers, Hux with his hand at the small of Ren’s back, thinking of how he had given himself up, in the service of his new goal. 

They got through the door, and Ren just stood for a moment. Hux let him, though he was only waiting for the slightest sign to take him in his arms again, if it would be needed.

Ren went to Lord Vader’s relic and knelt.

“I’m going home. I talked to Mom. I’m going to finish what we set out to do. I did it. What you showed me was real.”

Hux stood behind him, and looked down at the burnt out old helmet. He placed his hand on Ren’s shoulder. Despite his best picture of himself as a man who did not do this sort of thing, he addressed what, if anything, was left of Lord Vader. “He was very brave. And honourable. I’m extremely proud of him,” he said. And he felt tears well in his eyes. He dropped to his knees, wincing very slightly, and put his arms around his love. “You’ve been so brave. You have, darling, you really have.”

“Thank you,” Ren whispered. “Are you alright? You’ll still come with me?”

“And face whatever I have to face? Yes.” He brushed his cheek, gently grazing the scar with his thumb. “I have a role to play in this now. So I know what I’m doing. She’s wrong — I _do_ know what I’m doing. I’ll try to get out of this as best I can. But it’s the goal that’s important. We get rid of him.”

“We will.”

“Are you tired?”

“Yes.”

“A lot’s happened.”

“We need to relax.” 

“My legs ache, from all the trekking.”

“I know we took a shower just a few hours ago, but while we have these excellent facilities, what about a soak in some warm water.”

“Let’s do that, then.”

Hux ran the bath and set the control unit to maintain a steady temperature. The complementary toiletries included a relaxing bath oil, which had a pleasant herbal scent. He added a capful. The bath filled rapidly, and it was very soon time to undress and step in. There was a head rest at each end, and they both reclined with the water almost up to their necks. 

“This is nice. I think we needed this,” Hux said, and reached out a hand to gently touch Ren’s leg. He played with the hairs on his calf, feeling them flow and swish in the warm water. “I do think it’s helping,” he said.

“Warmer than the lake.”

Hux felt himself relax more and more. He should, he thought, maybe have been feeling dread, but that part of him was entirely numbed, and all he felt was the pleasant warmth of being in a bath, with his love. 

“Come here and sit with me.”

Hux manoeuvred himself in the water, carefully so as not to let any of it slosh out, and sat in front of Ren, between his thighs. Arms wrapped around him. 

“You’ve been so good to me,” Ren said. “It’s important. It matters.” He stroked Hux’s shoulders and upper chest, and Hux took his hand, and kissed the back of it, while Ren kissed and nosed at his neck. 

“My love.” 

Hux leant back against Ren’s warm broad chest. And felt something, at the small of his back. “Are you, uh, are you hard?”

“I’m in a warm, relaxing bath with a very attractive man. These things will happen.”

Hux shifted and wriggled back onto Ren’s erection. “Flattery will get you absolutely everywhere.”

It was a distraction, but how he wanted a distraction. How he wanted that glorious warm body, how he wanted to give him pleasure, joy. He leant right back back and twisted his neck to kiss him, catching his eye and feeling warm and alive and something approaching reckless. Their arms and legs slipped and slid over each other in the oiled water, a hand wandered over his thigh, and Hux was soon almost fully hard.

“Do you want to stay in here, or try out the bed?”

“Bed. I hope that doesn’t make me terribly dull.”

They dried off again, hurriedly. Ren put on one of the complimentary bathrobes and laid back on the bed, leaving it open at the waist. He was a feast, just like always. Hux joined him, leaning over him, almost lying on top of him as he traced the line of dark on his top lip and chin. “When did you last shave, then?”

“Two days ago, I think?”

Hux laughed and kissed him, first his lips and then his still soft cheek where barely any hair grew. He kissed first one dark mole, then another, then another. Ren sighed blissfully.

“Ben,” he said softly, rubbing their noses together and kissing him again. “My prince.” They both laughed. Ben’s eyes were warm and Hux felt himself smile down at him as though nothing mattered at all. “Tell me what you want,” he said.

“I want you,” Ben said. “I want you to make me feel.”

“Oh.” He nibbled at Ben’s earlobe, making him gasp. “So you want to be fucked?”

“Yes. Want you inside me.”

“Well, I will,” he said, kissing him, “but my legs are tired. So you might not get the good hard fuck that you perhaps feel you’ve merited.”

“We’ll lie on our sides.” Ben slipped off the robe and got into position. “Do you want to, or shall I?” He already had the bottle of lubricant.

“Let me.” He settled in behind him, and took the bottle. “Don’t want it to be cold for you,” he said, warming some in his hand before rubbing two wet fingers against Ben’s hole. “Tell me you like it,” he whispered.

“I like it. I’ve always liked it. Since the first time. Since I first wanted you.”

“I know you do.” He pressed with the pad of a finger and let it slip in. Penetrating, circling, probing. Slowly, he opened him, with two fingers, while kissing the back of his neck. “You’re so beautiful. I was always so lucky. I still am.” He listened to sighs and moans as he pressed, found the right place and stroked it. Then came more slick lube, pushing it into him, guiding it in. “I think you’re ready for me now.”

“Fuck me, then.”

He pushed in slowly, his hand on a hip, pulling him closer. “Fuck. You feel so good. So hot inside. So hot.” Ben ground back against him, grunting. Hux reached his hand around onto his chest, found a nipple to tease, and Ben moaned and panted as he pulled and rubbed and tweaked.

Ben pulled one knee up to his chest, to give Hux more depth, and Hux moved his arm around him to grasp his cock. It was hot and hard and silky, delicious in his hand, and already wet at the tip. 

Ben rocked his hips between the hand on him and the cock in him, fucking himself out of bare need.

Hux gritted his teeth and thrusted harder and faster. His thighs and buttocks burned with the effort. Ben’s noises were quite loud — he hoped the room had soundproofing, but he wasn't going to stop when they were both so close. He jerked Ben’s cock faster, and felt the body in his arms tense up and seem to hang there, all quivering potential. Ben panted; his breath stopped for a moment, then he groaned in pleasure and relief, his cock pulsing over Hux’s hand, over his own body, over the discarded bath robe.

Hux had just a few more last jerky pushes before he came, deep inside Ben. He breathed, deep and hard, kissed his neck and muttered “I love you,” then said it again, more audibly.

Before long, Ben was half way asleep. Hux wiped him off with a towel and tucked the bed covers over him. He set the room temperature to a cooler setting, made his final preparations for sleep, and got in to the bed. It was comfortable, and the linen was rather fine.

Ben turned over and sleepily cuddled him. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

“For all of it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, well, a lot happened there, and I hope it worked for you. I really hope I did the OT favs a modicum of justice.
> 
> I was going to have a short exchange in the local language between Ren & Taina, but I forgot, and then I couldn't fit it in without disturbing the flow of what I had.
> 
> Yes, Taina _is_ an idealised self-insert and I have literally zero shame about that.
> 
> I probably didn't handle the droid characterisation as well as I would have liked.
> 
> Yes, the sex scene at the end is kind of gratuitous and I probably should have left it out, but I find myself Just Not Wanting To. I can't always be my best self with these things. I was looking forward to the boys finally getting somewhere with a massive bathtub and a comfy bed, and well, sometimes when things get very emotional in this life, sex does seem like a way of coping or distracting oneself and so that's just what happened.
> 
> Whichever and whatever choice I make about naming in that last scene isn’t quite right — I tried it three different ways and it is how it is.


	15. Down the Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all downhill from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stealth edited on 8 Dec to add a tiny narrative point I'd forgotten about (hadn't read one section synopsis carefully enough, whoops)

He woke in the most comfortable bed, soft pillows against his cheek and warm bedcovers above him, human warmth close by. The pleasant softness was almost immediately swamped, like a nerf calf at the shore, by the incoming wave of realisation about what the day would bring.

“Hey. Good morning.”

There he was.

“Sleep well?”

“Yes. Just a little… you know. A big day, rather.”

Ren slipped an arm around him and held him, close to his chest, right up against the scent of him. “We’ve come this far,” he said, and squeezed him. 

“I wish we could stay here,” Hux said, muttering it into Ren’s collarbone. “I know it’s impossible, and I don’t really mean it as an option.” 

“I know.” Ren nuzzled the top of his head. “I know.”

“It’s not as if we’d have been permitted any vacation, even if any of the rest of it were possible.”

He held close to Ren, trying to hold on to the warmth that would have been comforting, were it not for the knowledge of how soon it would be taken away from him.

“When we surrender, we’ll be separated.”

“Temporarily. I’ll try to work something out.”

“I don’t doubt you will. But all this playing happy families — I’m going to have to be on top mettle just to avoid being immediately put to death.”

“It won’t be like that. I won’t let that happen.”

Hux had faith in Ren’s intentions, and in his powers, but he could not have faith in the enemy.

He traced his hand over Ren’s waist, feeling the bowcaster scar under his fingers. Ren sighed at his touch.

“Does this make last night the last time?”

“The last for a little while. Unless…”

Hux glanced down under the covers. Of course Ren had woken up like this.

Ren’s hand slid down his back and pulled him closer. “Do you want to?”

“I think so.” He pulled his head back and looked up at Ren. “Um — not to be fussy, but would you wash your mouth? You probably don’t taste the best.”

“I will if you will.” So they slid out of bed and rushed into the refresher, stood side by side, naked and hard, and took turns with mouthwash. Back into bed like they’d never got out of it, they kissed and tangled.

“Let me in.”

“Hmm?”

“Into your mind.” 

He gave permission and felt Ren push in.

_I want to know how it feels. I want you to know. To remember._

_Yes._

_To kiss you, and everything — can I, when I’m in here?_

_Yes._

He kissed Hux gently and slowly, and they both sighed as one.

_Beautiful. Do you feel it? That I love you?_

_Yes. I do._

It was that feeling like electricity, and something more, warm and blissful, coming from Ren.

Hux kissed down onto Ren’s chest _(yes)_ and plotted a slow route with his lips and tongue around Ren’s lovely muscles _(yes, soon)_ and finally _(please, hux, please, yes)_ onto his nipple. He sucked and teased it, and smiled against Ren’s chest at the groaning, panting pleasure he was giving him.

He tucked one hand up under Ren’s neck, to be kissed and nuzzled, Ren’s mouth soft and velvety against the inside of his wrist; and with the other he stroked gently over Ren’s abdomen, down through rough hair to his lovely hard cock.  

_So good, you’re so good._

He stroked Ren, and felt Ren’s moans almost echoing inside his own chest. He upped and straddled him, then, and leant forward over him.

_I like making you feel good._

_I know. I know._

They were rubbing together, kissing, touching, all sensation almost without aim. Ren’s hands were on Hux’s back, his buttocks, his thighs, smoothing over him, raising delight to the surface of his skin.

_I can feel it. I can feel it too._

_Like you’re touching yourself?_

_Almost. But better._

Hux forgot about everything except his love, there in his arms, there between his thighs. The sight of Ren’s face in concentration and anticipation, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheek and his lip pink and bitten — it was beautiful.

_Let me show you._

Ren was more present inside his mind than he had been, bringing a cascade of feeling with him, too much to understand and bear, too much for this rutting and caressing. His pleasure was suddenly more urgent, and then overcoming, onrushing, irresistible. 

He supposed, still muddle-headed and coming down from it, that they must have orgasmed almost simultaneously, which was a nice trick if you could do it. And, of course, Ren had his powers and he could.

“We should get up now, really.”

 A quick wash and wipe, and they pulled on their bathrobes. Ren bent to scrutinise a caf machine on a side table.  "Let’s have caf. Or tea if you like.” 

“Caf, I think. Not pay to drink this time, I hope.”

“Of course not. Look, they even give you pretty cups. Isn’t that decadent?”

Hux tried to look unimpressed.

“You never know to treat these things as though they’re your birthright, or as though they’re unnecessary frivolities,” Ren said.

“Just make the sodding coffee.”

Ren brought him his cup. It smelled good, and he took a sip. Ren, drinking from his own cup, investigated the window. He pulled a lever and the shutters rolled up with a swift, clattering sound. Bright light burst in, and Hux blinked. “There’s a balcony,” Ren said. “Come and see.”

Hux slid his feet into his slippers. The view of outside was lovely. Snow lay in drifts and scatterings, coloured by light gold and pink sunrise light. Light clouds carried more sunrise colours. “It’s beautiful,” he said. “It really is.”

Ren opened the doors for them to step out onto the balcony. The air was crisp and cold about the lower legs, but the bathrobe was thick and held warmth in. Hux sipped his caf.  Perhaps they weren’t so different from the other guests who had passed through this room.

Ren looked at the lay of the land. “I want to get out there. See where we are.”

“ _Can_ we get out? I mean, we’re technically enemy assets from her point of view.”

“Oh, she’ll be wanting to keep tabs on us. And besides, the droid’s got our boots. ”

“Well, we’ll have to get them back off him, won’t we?”

They went back inside, dressed, and began to pack. Until something caught Hux’s eye.

“Oh my.”

“What?”

“ _Him_.” Hux pointed at Vader’s helmet. “He was there all the time.”

“Yeah, I uh…”

“Ren. We had _sex_. In front of… in front of your grandfather.”

“It’s OK, he wasn’t _here_.”

“He hasn’t been, has he? I mean —“ and he started laughing in panic — “there has been _no occasion_ on which the ghost of Lord Vader has been quietly standing by while we had any form of sexual congress?”

“No. He wouldn’t. Give him some credit.”

“I don’t even believe in ghosts,” Hux said, to nobody in particular.

He fussed with his pack and fastened it. “Right then. Let’s make an appearance.”

They descended the stairs, to be met at first by the droid.

“Good morning, sirs.” The droid turned his optics towards Hux. “Almost the tranquility of a droid-run establishment this morning.” _Why was he saying that? What the hell was that supposed to signify?_ “Leave your bags behind the desk and Ms Taina will be here any moment — ah, here she is.”

A door at the back of the reception hall opened and Taina came through, carrying a stepladder and a tool bag.

“Sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you. We were just admiring the view from the balcony.”

“And thinking of our onward route,” Hux added.

“Ah-ha. I’ll show you around outside and let you see where the track goes down the mountain. It’s a fine day, if a little chill. Let’s find your boots.”

“The gentlemen’s boots, of course,” said the droid, with what sounded like wry sarcasm.  

“Could you take these, too?” Taina handed him the stepladder and tool bag, and he clanked off through another door, returning soon with boots both clean and dry. 

Taina pulled on her over trousers and a blanket cloak, unlocked the doors and escorted them outside. She showed off the architecture of the lodge, built low to the ground with a high pitched roof. A new wing housed the majority of the rooms, she explained, the old house only accounting for a third of the building.

“It’s round the back you’ll see the summer veranda,” she said, and led them down the side of the building to an open flat area with a beautiful view of the mountains and valley. “This is where we cook outside in summer, and eat outside.” She seemed to fall back into habitual saleswomanship, even with those who were unlikely to be in a position to publicise her business. 

“It’s nice,” Hux said.

They walked onto the far extent of the summer veranda, to get the best view of the valley. From here, they could see a path snaking down through snowy rock fields.

“When you go,” Taina said, “you’ll be going down the main walking route, which is fairly obvious. There are piles of stones to mark the way — you can’t go wrong.”

“No chance you’d call us a speeder taxi, I suppose,” Hux said, half joking.

“No chance at all. Security issue notwithstanding, the guy who runs the taxis went down south for winter two days ago.”

“Is that an official schedule or does everyone here do as they damned well please all the time?”

“Semi-official, in that the season is generally agreed to last for a set period, but listen, the man goes down south because there’s no reason for him to stay up here if he’s not making money. He’s not under _orders_.” She shook her head at him in confused exasperation.

Ren looked down at the valley. “This route leaves us open,” he said.

“There _are_ routes through the crags, up there.” Taina pointed. “But you don’t know them, and it’s possible to go wrong and get stuck. Especially with snow on the ground. Too risky.”

“Alright.”

“If I need to catch you up for any reason, that’s the way I’ll go. So I’d be coming down from the left flank. Probably by speeder bike.”

“We’ll bear that in mind.”

Walking further around the building, Hux noticed the obvious large transceiver aerial, and mentioned it.

“We need high quality holo and screen reception. For the guests,” Taina said, wryly.

Hux turned to Ren. “Did you know this was here? Before we came here, before we made use of it.”

“No. Not really. I don’t just know things. That’s not the way of the Force.”

“But you knew she had connections! Did Security Bureau know anything about this? A communications node in plain sight, a known associate of Resistance members. You’d think…”

Taina laughed. “I expect I have had FOSB agents passing through. They see a legitimate business because it _is_ a legitimate business. On a Republic world, paying Republic taxes.”

Hux shook his head and almost laughed himself, before changing the subject a little. “What’s the power situation for the transceiver?”

“Mixed fuel generation unit — mainly runs off bioconversion.”

“You get enough power from bioconversion to get an uplink and keep the lights on?”

Taina chuckled. “ _Mainly_ runs off bioconversion. There’s a micro-reactor component for heavy load.” She was happy to chat as they made their way back around to the front porch.

Hux nodded. “I understand why you have endless hot water now. And you and your droid manage all this yourselves?

“Of course. The system manages demand by itself.” 

“I must say your systems seem quite sophisticated — the control panels in the rooms, all of that.”

“This place isn’t a nerf barn, you know.”

“Of course not. I was just interested.”

“The micro-reactor and control panels come from my sister-in-law — she works at Delvik Systems. Most of the panels are off the peg, but there are some clever bits and pieces that she comes up with for me.” 

Taina paused at the front desk and fetched a holoprojector from a shelf underneath.

“Look, this is my not so little brother Azik and his wife Enalu,” and she switched the holo on to show a large broad-chested man with apple cheeks, resembling Taina very strongly except for his bushy brown moustache, and a short dark skinned woman with clever eyes and a gap-toothed smile. The springy curls of the woman’s hair bounced as the holo moved, husband and wife looking at each other with broad grins and pointing playful fingers at each other then at the camera. “They’re coming up next week, weather permitting. Azik will help me with the heavy lifting and outdoor work, and Enalu will do the wiring and testing, probably service the power unit while she’s here. Time to fit in a few speeder bike rides on the back trails, too, hopefully.“

“I see. Generous with her time and work.”

“We have a deal — Enalu gives me super cheap rates, and I not-so-subtly promote her business to my guests and pass any potential leads back to her. People with access to large development budgets pass through here, you know.” She laughed. “I’ve got datachips of hers, here.”

This seemed like entirely the sort of back door cosy corruption that ought to be stamped out.

They ate breakfast in the kitchen, at a work bench. The droid fried them some eggs and then left, presumably to the secret comms room.

Taina gave them more caf, from a large machine, and Hux wondered if this, too, came from dubious nepotistic backchannels. She briefly explained to them where they should go once they reached the town of Brose Lake Station: through town gate number 2, through the streets to the back entrance of the mayor’s house, where someone would receive them.

And then it was time, again. They descended to the secret room, where C-4BK was waiting for them at the comm station. 

“I’m ready to go if you are, Ms Taina, Mr Hux. I have a connection through proxy relay stations ready to go but it won’t stay up for long.”

“How long,” Taina asked.

“Ten minutes from uplink. There is a risk of traceback.”

Taina turned to Hux, now a very different sort of businesslike to the professional innkeeper she was upstairs. “This will be a three minute call. If they put you on hold, you may not have enough time to say what you want to say. I will cut you off at three minutes thirty.”

“Alright,” Hux said, and breathed in and out, preparing himself. He entered the numeric address for his sister’s comm, minus the last three digits. This would put him through to the office, but not his sister’s desk.

“Hello. Could I speak with Miss Mitaka, please?

Of course. I’ll hold.” He made hand gestures to Taina and Ren, indicating he wouldn’t hold up the line too long.

A young woman’s voice answered. “Hello?”

“Miss Mitaka, good afternoon. Just a very brief call to see how your placement is going — all good?”

“Yes, everything is going very well, thank you.” The girl should really have asked questions to ascertain who she was speaking with, but then again if she thought she was speaking to a superior from the graduate fast track program, she would assume that such a challenge would be insubordinate.

Hux, for his part, asked a couple more meaningless questions, and then, “Still reporting to Mrs Veltin?”

“Yes.” There was the slightest hesitation in her voice.

“When is your boss usually in the office, so I know the best time to catch her?”

She hesitated again. “Um, late mornings, most days. But I believe she’s fully booked with out of office meetings tomorrow.” Ellis was clearly not there and not going to be there tomorrow, and Zetelheid Mitaka knew it, and she was buying time. 

“I’m glad to hear you’re satisfied in your work. I understand your brother, Dopheld, serves on the Finalizer — he has a great attachment to his posting.”

“Indeed so.”

“And if anyone should find that things change, or have changed, and they should find their loyalties better expressed with things as they were, it might be possible to resolve that situation.” Hux felt his head start to ache at the nonsense he was spouting.

“Might it.” She sounded as if there were some understanding there.

“Sisters often worry for brothers when they are far away. And vice versa. I hope to keep in touch.”

“Yes,” she said, surprisingly brightly. “Indeed. I hope you manage to get hold of Mrs Veltin.” That had to be mutual understanding, surely. But there was no way to check.

“Good afternoon, Miss Mitaka. And thank you.” He pressed the button to end the call, and C-4BK quickly stepped in to download and check the call’s trace route and to unhook from intermediate relay stations.

He breathed a heavy sigh. “I hope that was only recorded for voice sentiment analysis, because it shouldn’t flag. Listen to the actual words and it stinks. Could I have been more obvious if I’d said ‘if your brother’s fancying a mutiny, his old CO says hang tight and he’ll be in touch’?”

“It wasn’t so bad. She put on a good front, if anyone was listening just to her end.”

“Yes, she rather did. Very capable girl.”

“The next step is up to you — I can’t be keeping that line of communication open unless under direct orders from General Organa. It’s just too risky.”

Hux nodded. “Ren, I expect your mother’s people, their own secret comm network — we’ll be able to keep in touch and get a line open to Dopheld and the crew.”

“I believe so. If it’s for the cause.”

“Of course it’s for the cause!” Hux caught himself, and pulled back from really snapping at Ren. It was hard. “Obviously _you_ know. I can only hope she will see it that way too.” He sighed again, and carried on. “I think, on balance of probability, Ellis, my sister, has already gone. I don’t think she’s reported to work, at least not today. The Mitaka girl sounded a little worried when her name was mentioned, as if something wasn’t right. No idea if she’s trying to get away, or they’ve already taken her.”

Taina looked at him with hard eyes.

“Who’s this ‘they’, hmm?”

Hux looked back at her, his expression blank.

She carried on, a thin chill in her tone. “I expect there are thousands of people, probably hundreds of thousands, who would find your sudden development of concern around the actions of the FOSB to be, well, rather cold comfort.”

“I’m a hypocrite, I know,” he snapped. “That’s what he’s always telling me. Well, it’s too bloody late for me to be anything but. So I’d rather not see my little niece and nephew motherless, or…”

“Conscripted?”

“No, they’re officer class children, and too old for the program and I… look, just don’t, alright?”

Taina visibly bit down and pursed her lips, and nodded very slowly at him.

Ren had been right. It was a question of to whom and what one wished to be loyal. And this would hopefully be true for the crew of the Finalizer, when the time came.

They climbed the stairs, leaving C-4BK to secure the room. They fetched their bags, the nervous finality of the situation hovering around them. 

“Hey, did the salvage guy get back to you” Ren said, quietly, almost awkwardly, as Taina was putting her cloak on. 

“Yes, he did. Three hundred fifty plus ten a week garaging, if you want it picked up as cargo, or eight hundred all in for full working order. “

“What if he sells me a repulsor unit and I get the ship picked up as cargo, then we can fix anything else…”

“Ren,” Hux said. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Alright,” Taina said, “give me five hundred and I’ll sort it.”

Ren dug in his pocket for his stolen wallet and handed over the credits.

“Thank you.”

They put their boots back on, shouldered their bags and stepped outside. Taina followed them.

“Well, chaps. Good luck, and remember, if you see a speeder bike coming down from the crags, it’s me, and it won’t be good news.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

“Hey,” she said. “I feel like I owed this to your mom and dad.” She opened her arms and Ren let her hug him. “You take care, Ben, okay?” They patted one another on the back.

“And you,” Taina said. “ _And_ you.” She sighed and shook her head. “I still don’t quite get you,” she said, and gave Hux a very quick hug. “But take care of him. And do what you need to do.”

“I will.”

“I ought to sweep up and tidy up. You were never here.”

Ren was looking to the mountain tops and the sky. He seemed shocked and afraid, then angry.

“It’s _him_ ,” he said. “He knows.” 

“How?”

“He knows. He knows somehow.” He looked up again, and bellowed at the sky, “No! Not for anything!” then spread his fingers wide and pushed something invisible away. 

A shockwave rippled across the ground. Sharp reports rang out over the pass, the sound of rocks cracking. Ren was not holding back with the Force any more, it seemed.

Taina sucked her teeth and looked back at the house. “Hope you’ve not broken anything in there,” she muttered.

“They’ll be coming now,” Ren said. “On his orders, not some half-assed effort from Beynon and his hangers-on.”

“You need to go. And I need to clear up. Now.”

“Goodbye, Ms Ahlan,” Hux said. “And thank you, for your kindness.”

“Good luck,” she said. 

Hux and Ren set off, and heard hasty footsteps as Taina ran back to the house.

Their boots squeaked in the snow, and they had to go carefully. Initially there wasn’t much to say, at least not much that wasn’t queued up in the throat, behind a plug of fear. No, anticipation. Tension. Not quite fear. 

The snow got thinner — the worst of the snowstorm must not have got to this side of the mountain. Where the sun caught the rocks, it was melting and drying. The path took them past a tiny lake, lined only with boulders.

“We have to be ready to fight,” Ren said, suddenly.

“I think we are. Will you sense them before they get here?”

“I think so. If it’s one of the other knights, I’ll sense them.”

“And if we see troop landers descending, we’ll know,” Hux said, grimly.

Sky and crags reflected in the still surface of the water. There were no troop landers to be seen, at least not yet.

“Ren. He was always going to find you, catch up with us, wasn’t he? But we can get down there, to the rendezvous, before anyone reaches us. Even if they know where we are.”

“They won’t know exactly. Not unless Taina’s contact in Koire Station has been compromised.”

“In any case, we still have a head start. I do think that.”

“No, you’re right. Are you confident with that blaster rifle, do you think?”

“Yes. If I can be in a concealed position, I’ll be fine.”

“We keep moving. It’s all we can do.”

A little further down, in terrain of rough rock and tough purple grass, the thought of what they might have to do weighed heavy. “I don’t want to be fighting our own people,” Hux said.

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to be fighting one of your knights.”

“Neither do I.”

Ren had said they were like his brothers and sisters. They had a bond, through vows and through common living. Hux had only very rarely seen the Knights of Ren in ensemble, and had only twice spoken to individual members other than Kylo, as individuals. Phira Ren had been rude and dismissive, and Umit Ren efficient but completely uninterested in conversation.

“If they challenge me, in the correct way, I have to. Those are our rules and customs.”

“It may not come to that.”

Hux loosened his scarf. “I still can’t quite work out if High Command know we’re together,” he said. “The conspirators knew, but I don’t think it was common knowledge.”

“No,” Ren said. “I don’t believe it was.”

“Too few official resources spent on us, too much backchannel stuff with bounty hunters. But they’ll know now.”

“The others may have thought I’d taken you into custody, on his orders. But he’ll have told them now. He’ll have told them something.” They walked a few more metres. “I don't know what Snoke knew. I think he believed I would go crawling back.”

“Then he doesn't know you.”

“He doesn’t. He thinks he did. His dutiful apprentice, willing to sacrifice everything.”

Ren looked up, to the left. “I hear something.” 

There was a medium high pitched sound, a hum. And then they both saw, high up on the slope, heading downhill at half a meter from the ground — a speeder bike.

“Well, there she is. So it can’t be good news.”

They kept walking until Taina intercepted them. Her speeder bike was towing a trailer, with C-4BK in the back, hanging on to several boxes covered in cloths.

“They’re here,” she shouted. “They’re fucking _here_. Didn’t see them come down, but they’re here.”

“Where are they?”

“On their way to you. They’ve burnt the lodge down.”

“You saw them? Did they see you?”

“Don’t think so. We were lucky; we’d just packed up most of the comm equipment and data, and we were just up by the low bushes, where the back trail starts. SeeFour saw them first.”

“I saw something white in the distance. My optics are extremely reliable.”

“How many?”

“Twenty or so, we reckon,” Taina said. “Led by a figure in black. One of yours.”

“Tall or shorter?”

“Tall.”

“Troopers all in white? None in chrome,” asked Hux.

“None in chrome. We got up the trail while they were turning the place over, looked back from the top and it was on fire. Think we got almost everything sensitive, can’t be certain.”

“You’re getting a ship out?”

“If we can. Wish I could give you a ride, but we’re up against the weight limits as it is. Good luck. Time to set up an ambush, General.” She turned up the engines and shot off down the hill, jolting the droid in the back trailer.

“We should do what the lady said.” Hux looked around. “Just around there, that little crag on the right. I could get up there and have cover.”

“Yes, that’s good, that’ll work. Quick, we hide the bags, and I stay behind a rock until they come within range.”

Hux climbed up to the crag, and found himself a good position to lay down. His knees would be wet, as the ground was soggy in between low bushes and rocks. He waited. Below, hiding behind a rock, Ren waited.

He could see the troops coming down the track now. There were twenty of them, led by a knight of Ren, all in black. Hux didn’t recognise which one. He could see a flametrooper, fresh from putting the fire to Taina’s lodge. He’d been thinking he might allow himself to believe he’d be back there one day. Same room, of course.

He shouldered his rifle. 

Once the troops were in range, Ren stepped out from his concealing rock. 

“Kylo Ren!” the other knight shouted, his voice slightly distorted through his mask. “You have strayed from the ways of the Order of Ren.”

“I am on my path. Are you so sure?”

“You must return. The Supreme Leader is displeased with you.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“You will return.” ( _What was his name_ , Hux thought, _what was his damned name? Kylo had mentioned a name._ )

“I will return,” Kylo said, “at my own time and on my own terms.” He was angry, defiant. Hux kept his sights on the soldiers, ready for them to attack, while listening to the words of the two knights of Ren, and stealing glances at them when he could.

“He orders it.”

“And I refuse.”

“Do we see Kylo Ren turn traitor?”

“No. We see Metan Ren as foolish and weak as I once was, running errands for a liar and a cheat.”

 _Metan Ren_ , thought Hux. That was it, of course that was the man’s name. Kylo had mentioned it, more than once. “You don’t speak that way of the Supreme Leader. He is wise. You have been misled, and you need to be brought back.”

Hux heard Kylo laugh, dry and dismissive.

“The other traitor is with you,” the other knight, this Metan Ren, called. “You’re hiding him. The little General.” _How dare he_. “We’ll have you both alive. For now at least.”

“I won’t let you.”

“Then you leave us little choice.”

Kylo had unhooked his lightsaber hilt almost before the other knight had finished speaking. The other knight signalled to a troop sergeant, who gave the order to fire, and the stormtroopers fired in groups of five, as per their training. Kylo deflected their bolts, with his use of the Force and with his lightsaber. He couldn’t be expected to hold back a near constant fusillade from twenty troopers, so Hux had to start taking them down. He picked off one, two, three of the soldiers. His own soldiers. Then a miss, and another hit.

He knew that as soon as he gave away his position, they could try to take him down, but he had to cover Kylo. It didn’t look like the troops had grenades, which was in his favour at least. 

The knight gestured in Hux’s direction, and ten troopers ran toward him. They’d potentially find him in about five minutes, but he’d pick them off on the way up. He took out a couple more of them, while Kylo used his powers to throw some of them into the rocks.

The two knights stood facing each other, separated by maybe twenty metres. The other knight raised his hand slowly. Kylo adjusted his stance as if in preparation. 

There was a low hum and a shimmer in the air — Hux couldn’t keep his eye too closely on it, as he was tracking the movement of the approaching soldiers. He shot another, and another. Shoot to the centre of mass, to stop, then at a weak point to make sure. Their armour would have stopped the bolts from his own blaster, but it didn’t stand up to the Kanji rifle.

Hux heard a loud crack and his attention snapped to the two knights of Ren, who were seemingly fighting invisibly, duelling with the Force, he supposed. It was a bizarre sight: one figure in black short robes and a black helmet, similar to Kylo’s own but with a different, more geometric design; and one in a grey shirt and jacket like any space going chap might wear, topped with a black cowl, his hair fluttering in the wind; each with one arm extended towards one another, and between them, a fizzing, crackling shimmer of light. Kylo’s lightsaber was still ignited, while the other knight had not taken his from his belt.

Hux did not want to be too distracted by the scene. But he did want to watch it. He shot down another two troopers, and quickly checked the level in the rifle’s gas fuel pack. He took a spare from a holder on his holster belt, his fingers not daring to fumble, and changed it out. There was no point in keeping any of the soldiers alive. It wasn’t worth the risk. Unfortunate, but there it was. 

Metan Ren unclipped his lightsaber hilt from his belt, and the blade came to life: red, and smoother than Kylo’s blade. Hux had wondered whether all the knights of Ren had such crackling, unruly sabers as Kylo did, and it seemed now not so.

“I would not have chosen this,” he said. “I do not want to fight you. But you will return or you will die.”

He advanced, at a walking pace. Kylo did likewise.

Then the duel began, properly. Metan Ren went to strike first, and Kylo fought back. Both men were powerful and quick on their feet, moving constantly. 

The soldiers were all on the ground, in heaps of white and black, slain by the very officer who had overseen their training. Though they would have seen him now as merely a traitor, all respect having evaporated. That was the way things worked, the rules Hux had lived by.

It was knight against knight now. Blades hummed and whirred and clashed. And it was breathtaking. Hux had seen short holovids of Kylo Ren in action on the battlefield, and they’d been quite impressive, but to see him fighting lightsaber to lightsaber was quite amazing. He had an elegance and a brute force that was quite magnificent.

The two knights were fairly well matched, dancing around one another. One would have the upper hand for barely a few moments before the other fought back. Hux watched, concerned that his Ren would be wounded again. 

The lightsabers clashed together; Kylo pushing the other knight back, deflecting his blade and in the same fluid motion spinning around to slice through the air, making his opponent duck and struggle to regain ground. 

“Unmask!” Kylo yelled. “Unmask and see me face to face. Coward.” He took a few steps back and stood with his weapon at his side, giving the other knight space to do as bidden.

And so he did, the other knight, this Metan Ren. He lifted his left hand to each side of his helmet in turn, unclasping it; then pulled it off and cast it aside, showing himself to be a human man, of a similar age to Kylo, light ruddy tan in complexion with sandy dark blond hair. He was less striking in appearance than Kylo, and would, if he were in disguise, have passed unnoticed through any planet’s ports, better so than Kylo and Hux himself had probably done.

“You are the cowards. You will face your fate.”

The battle began again. Hux willed Kylo on. He could see the determination and effort in both faces as they fought, and there was something beautiful and exhilarating in it — Kylo’s hair flying around his head as he moved, the shape of his body in motion, the fire in him, the light flush of pink on his cheeks.

The fight came to a sort of natural pause, with both men some four metres apart, slowly circling one another. Hux’s left hip and knee were starting to get uncomfortable as he watched.

“You do all this for allegiance to Snoke?” Kylo asked, contemptuous.

“For Snoke. For loyalty.”

Kylo stepped forward with his lightsaber held high. “You did not swear allegiance to Snoke. Not as a knight of Ren.” Hux could hear the anger boiling in his voice. “You swore it to _me_!”

“You are no longer loyal, Kylo.”

“You swore allegiance to _me_. I am the master of the knights of Ren. _Not_ you. I have not released you from your holy bond. You step against me.”

Kylo was still _this_ — this strange mystic knight with holy rules. And his opponent, this Metan Ren, Hux could see now, was also just a man. They were simply two men fighting to the death with swords of fire. Hux’s stomach clutched at him. He couldn’t bear to see his love hurt. Kylo had to win. He wanted to shoot the other knight in the back, but with the way the two were constantly moving in their fight, he couldn’t take the risk of missing Metan and hitting Kylo. All the firepower he’d ever had at his command, and he was reduced to lying on wet ground, being a spectator to a battle between two stronger men with powers he would never understand. 

The other knight surged forward now, full on the attack, and Kylo struck back, savage, fuelled by anger. His opponent’s defensive moves, though skilful, grew weaker. He stumbled, and Kylo cut him down.

After the body hit the ground, it was very quiet. From his position, Hux could just hear the hum of Kylo’s lightsaber, then the buzzing zip as the blade retracted. Kylo stood, quite still, and looked silently down at the body of his fellow knight. His brother in the Order of Ren.

Hux pulled himself up and slowly picked his way through the low bushes and muddy crags.

“Ren,” he said.

“Hux.”

He went to him, put both arms around him, and held him.

“It’s alright,” he said.

“Yes,” Ren said, quietly. “I think it must be.”

“You were brave. And quite magnificent.”

“Thank you. And thank you for covering me.”

“That’s alright. I had to. I couldn’t have you face them on your own.”

“No.” Ren breathed in deeply and sighed. “We have to make a fire.”

“Oh. Why?”

“We have to burn him. We burn our dead.”

They cut and fetched wood from bushes, and from a few sparse trees further down the hill. It was all eating into their time, but, from the way Ren had spoken, this was non-negotiable. 

The wood was piled on the ground, and Kylo dragged the body of Metan Ren on top of it, and placed the dead knight’s helmet and lightsaber on his chest. 

“There was a flametrooper. We have the kit. Is that permitted, or must we use your blade?”

“We can do both.”

Hux went to the body of the squad’s flametrooper and took the flamethrower from  their back. He tried it — still working — and carried it to the pyre.

Ren ignited his lightsaber again, and put the fire to a corner of the wood pile. “Now you,” he said.

Hux set flame to the pyre, keeping the flamethrower spouting until fire took hold. Next to him, Ren was muttering hidden words. Some sort of a prayer. Hux set the flamethrower down on the ground, went to Ren and put a hand on his arm.

“He had a family too,” Ren said, sadly.

“I’m sorry.”

They turned and left the fire burning, and walked on down the hill.

Somewhere down there was fate.


	16. The Mayor's House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flight.

“So that’s it,” Hux said, his feet beating out some sort of cadence on the rocks and stones of the path. “We hope for a more or less clear run to the mayor’s house, and then it’s, well…”

“Yes. It is.”

“And then it’s the homecoming, for Ben Organa Solo. The ‘little bird’ flies back to the nest.”

“It’s not so easy as that. You know it isn’t.”

“No. Damn sight easier for you than it is for me, though.” 

Ren shifted the duffel bag on his back. “You saw her. You heard what she said. I'm not going back to be mama’s precious boy. We’ll both be prisoners. Not just you.”

“I also heard what she said to you, and how she said it. You _are_ going back to be her son. You’re important to her. Don’t pretend you’re not.”

“It still isn’t easy. I’m not who they want me to be.” Ren sighed. “And I don’t know if that’s who they think they’re getting back.”

“Hm. Well. You are —“ he struggled for what to say — “I’m very fond of you. I love you. You know that.”

“I know. And it helps.”

“Good. Look, you know I don’t really do this sort of thing — discussing all these emotional ins and outs. It simply doesn’t exist in the culture I’m from.”

They walked on, the path taking them through boulders splattered with lichen patches and edged with stunted grass. 

“I’m better than they ever thought,” Ren said, sudden and forceful. “Stronger. And better than _he_ ever thought.”

“I’d agree with that.”

“Always caught between too much and not enough,” Ren said, speaking it into the landscape as if it were not really meant for a conversation between two people.

Of the two of them, Hux would always have said that Ren was the “too much,” while he himself, though he was loath to admit it, had tried always to avoid the “not enough”, chasing it away hard with armies and super weapons.

“I saw that in you, you know,” Ren said.

“Yes. I suppose you did. You’ve been in here and seen things —” he said, tapping his head — ”not that I necessarily would have wanted you to. I was never exactly good enough, certainly not for my father.” He felt his shoulders tensing under the thought. “He wanted the perfect soldier — his vision of that, anyway,” He couldn’t bring himself to elaborate on how unattainable Brendol Hux’s ideal was for his slender-boned offspring, useless great streak of piss that he apparently was. “And he wanted the perfect officer, which I _was_ , really. He even recognised that, grudgingly, from time to time. And the perfect technologist, and the perfect administrator — and I had to surpass every academic milestone Ellis had set down. And, you know, we had an empire to rebuild. So I did owe it to everyone. I’m not going to say I wish I hadn’t tried as hard.”

“This is the strength you have. It took me a long time to see it. Too long.”

It was nice to have it recognised, but really there had been no other option than simply getting on with it. As soon as there were enough instructors to provide functional schooling, that had been the priority for the children of the Empire in exile. Little Ellis and little Dion had been required to display the qualities associated with their parentage, and had also been required to serve as proof of the excellence of the new Imperial, and later new First Order, training academies. He did not know exactly what qualities little Ben Solo had been required to display, amid the laxity of the New Republic — the little prince, maybe, or the politician’s poster child, or the promising young racing pilot.

“I won’t work for them, you know. It won’t be like that. I only work for myself,” Ren said.

Hux choked out a dismissive laugh. “I don’t know what that’s like.”

“Yes, you do,” Ren said, with infuriating certainty. “Your hidden plans. The throne by fifty-five or sixty, wasn’t it?”

“That’s part of it. Though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t, you know, make a thing of it.”

The air got a little less cold as they descended. There was a set number of degrees per 100m of ascent, Hux recalled from some long-ago training module. He loosened his scarf and pulled off his gloves. The harsh cry of a bird was answered by another, more distant. Hux glanced up to see, far above, wide wings held out against the greying sky. Up above the clouds, above the atmosphere, surely another sort of bird must be hovering: a great durasteel bird of prey waiting for the return of Metan Ren’s sortie, or perhaps sending down reinforcements.

Ren was looking in the direction from which the second bird call had come. 

“What’s that over there?” He pointed to a cylindrical building tucked under the shoulder of a hill.

Hux got his quadnocs out and raised them. It was some sort of industrial or technical installation, almost certainly not residential. It actually looked for all the Galaxy like a service access point, perhaps for a hydro pipe or maybe even a power conduit. Not too dissimilar from what they’d had scattered over the surface of Starkiller. He adjusted the magnification, and his suspicion was confirmed.

“Looks like an access point — for a power conduit. There’s something up there or down there that needs a lot of power, reliably supplied.” He thought for a moment. “The no-fly zone. There must be a low-ceiling shield generator or two up there.”

“Probably unmanned, this access thing, do you think?”

“You might have one technician, but they’ll be doing their job and looking at their monitors, not gazing at the view.”

“We hope.”

“Let’s try to keep out of sight as much as possible. Just in case.”

They made a slight detour to stay on the lee side of an outcrop, out of line of sight. This entailed picking through rocks and mountain bushes, making their own path on steep ground.

“If the shield is still up, the troop landers must have landed outside and walked in. Or do we think they took the generator out from altitude? We’d have heard an explosion, surely.”

“Why does this matter,” Ren asked.

“I have to think things through,” Hux said. “And besides, it’s relevant. If they had to walk in, that means longer lead time. Though we don’t know where they were when they got the order to land here. Could have been only an hour or two away.”

“It frustrates you, not knowing, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it does! Ren, there’s a First Order ship in orbit above this planet. I don’t know which one. I don’t know when they got the order to pursue us. I don’t know when that unfortunate knight started giving the orders. I need to _know_ things. I can’t function if I don’t know things.”

“Sometimes you can’t know things.”

“I really don’t want to have to hear this from you. I think I’ve coped bloody well with the enforced lack of info over this, this _trip_ , and for you to be offering advice when you have this whole other sphere of knowledge — I just find it doesn’t sit well.”  

They passed through a kilometre or so of sparsely wooded terrain, and then over another tall fence into grazing land. A herder was moving animals from one area to another. He glanced at them, but kept his attention more on his flock. The path took them past a few farm buildings. Being seen was unavoidable, and going off-path would have raised more suspicion. Hux gritted his teeth as an old man stared at them from a doorway. _We’re just trekkers_ , he thought. _Late vacationers. If you ignore the high powered outlaw rifle over my shoulder, at least. Old bugger probably couldn’t see too well, anyway._

By now they could see the town buildings clustered in stone and whitewash at the edge of the oval-shaped Brose Lake, and soon the old town wall was in sight, punctuated by square gates. The map had given the gate to the south as gate 1, and the gate to the south east as gate 2. This was borne out in reality, with a large numeral 2 above the south-east gate. They would pass through here, hopefully unchallenged.

A small number of life forms were entering and leaving the town, and they decided to simply walk through, as if they were expecting nothing to happen. Attention was diverted by an argument happening on the other side of the street between two Narquois and a human, and Hux and Ren passed through into the town without the least comment. Perhaps they would have done anyway. 

The way to the mayor’s house went in a general westerly direction towards the lake, and they fell in with a light bustle of humans and other beings headed in that direction. After all that had happened, nerves were almost at their peak now. They were close to their destination, and everything could so easily be snatched from them. Hux tried to formulate plans for what he might do if he were suddenly stopped, what he might do if he saw Stormtroopers, what he might do if he heard the familiar note of a TIE engine.

The majority of people followed the street as it curved away to the north, but Hux and Ren took a side street continuing westwards. At the junction stood a large sculpture, some sort of civic monument. Arranged underneath it were rectangular wreaths of artificial flowers. _Of course. A memorial. Flowers for the one year anniversary of the events._ He glanced back. _Five wreaths. Of course._

There was nothing to be said or thought, not at the minute. No doubt soon he’d have every opportunity to rehearse a number of opinions about the events, for a formal interrogation. Hopefully, Organa and her colleagues would have the good sense to concentrate on the matter of Snoke before performing their manner of justice on Hux.

Near the end of this road, to the right, should have been a pale stone wall with a large door. But there was not. 

“We can’t have got lost in a place this size,” Hux hissed.

“Do you need the map?”

“No. No, I shall find it. We need the next street to the north.”

They turned back, turned left and made to turn left again, only to see a short alleyway lined by blank whitewashed walls. No door at all. So, back again, and around to the next street, where, finally, they found their large door set in a long pale stone wall.

Ren knocked.

They waited.

He knocked again.

They heard footsteps hurrying, and the door slid open a fraction. A young man’s face appeared.

“Come in. Be quick.”

The young man was wearing a sort of uniform of blue tunic and trousers. He hustled them inside before locking the door behind them.

“This way.”

He hurried them down a long corridor, past rooms where a few other blue-uniformed staff were occupied in the general chores that were required in the running of any establishment larger than a family home.

Next, they were bundled through a doorway into a half covered area that gave onto a large grass lawn sloping down to the lake shore. They were met by another, older, man, dressed in the same blue uniform.

“These are the passengers,” the younger man said to the older. “Have them wait out here.”

“Not in the house?”

“Not in the house. Mayor Stanten will come out to them, if he’s going to. When you see the transport coming in to land, they need to be ready to board. Immediate turnaround. There’s an enemy ship up there.”

“Hell’s bells,” the older man said. 

“It’s true,” Hux said. We were attacked on the way down.”

“I don’t doubt it. Just saying hell’s bloody bells.”

“If you see anything out of the ordinary —“ the young man said.

“I’ll alert you,” the older one finished.

And with a bang of a door, the younger man was gone.

“Right,” the older fellow said. “You two sit and wait. ETA forty minutes.”

“Okay.”

They sat on a bench at the far end of the half-covered area, under the overhanging roof. The man, in his blue staff uniform, stood a little distance away. Guarding them.

“I hope the transport’s got a fighter escort,” Ren said.

“So do I. And cloaking.”

“I hope Taina got away alright.”

“We could ask that man. Not directly, in case, but just to ask if a ship left port.”

Ren glanced over to where the man was standing under the covered walkway. “Excuse me?”

The man came back over.

“Would you happen to know,” Hux asked, “if any private craft left the port this morning?”

“Saw two go up, high up into atmo looking like they were heading for escape velocity.”

“Uh huh.”

“But I wouldn’t know if they fell foul of any other ship up there.”

“Thank you,”  Hux said, nodded and swallowed. He sat silently, looking into the distance, and the man wandered back to his post nearer the door.

Hux waited quietly for the next five minutes. Keeping quiet. Letting time pass by. It wasn’t easy, and it was getting less and less easy all the time. His hands clasped and grasped at each other, for want of anything good and definite to clutch onto. He pushed tight breaths back into his chest.

Ren slipped an arm around his shoulders and onto his back. “Yeah,” he said. “The waiting.”

“The waiting. Are _you_ alright?”

“Me? Yeah. I’m okay.” He placed a hand over Hux’s troubled knuckles: flat, warm and soothing. “The next steps are all ahead of us.”

Hux calmed himself again, more or less, breathing slowly, feeling Ren’s presence. The tightness abated somewhat.

He looked out at the lake, grey-blue and smooth under a patchy sky. It was quite picturesque, framed by evergreen and autumn-red trees and backed by more mountains. “I like it here,” he said, after a while. “Always thought I would.”

“I’d noticed that you did.”

“It’s a different life they live here.”

“Do you think you could get used to it?”

“I do, actually. With a few improvements.”

“And if we’d been born to it — as you were born to your life?”

“I don’t know. It’s too hard to imagine.”

“I’m just thinking,” Ren said. He was looking out at the lake, too, his proud profile making a lovely shape. “Envisaging things. Could we have met another way? If things had been different, I mean.”

“I don’t know. Really I don’t. You’re just trying to distract me.”

“Maybe I am. But I want to think about it.” 

Hux pondered for a moment. “Alright. I’ll tell you something — it came out in an argument, years later, that Mother wished we hadn’t gone with Father. That she might have taken us and let him go.” He shrugged. “Thinking back, I had no idea whether she meant it or if she just wanted to be spiteful, which she could be at times. But maybe, if you want to imagine something, you can imagine that.”

“So, if you’d grown up in the New Republic, somewhere?”

“Oh, she’d have gone back to the Calland estate.”

“What do you think you would have done?” The excitement in Ren’s voice was sweet, endearing, but it was just like him to be reaching for the intangible at a time when it was of least use.

“I don’t know. Not just running the estate.” He would have found land management terribly dull.

“Pick one of your roles and imagine it on the other side.”

“Military commander, lead project engineer, the training program — but for the enemy, you mean?”

“Pick what you like best. Military work or technical work.”

“Oh, my technical work. The military has always been my life, but the Engineering Corps are my people, more than any other. I feel almost guilty to say it. But it’s how I feel. And of course, Mother would have been a lot less attached to the military life than Father was.”

Ren made an agreeing noise. “I saw how you lit up when Taina was talking about Dad’s racing engineers. And about her sister in law and the electrics.”

“Ugh, I’m transparent to you these days. Yes. That’s what I care about most. That’s who I am, if you like.”

Ren looked at him, features gathered in light concentration. Hux felt a hint of a feeling that he was being read. “So, spaceport architect? Something energy related? Or, I see… hyperspace.”

“Maybe.”

“Tell me what you liked best in your projects.”

“What? Why are you asking me all this? It’s like you’re interviewing me for a profile.”

“Because I’m interested. I wish I’d asked you all this long ago. Let a person take an interest in you.”

“Okay. I actually _was_ very proud of the hyperspace targeting system. We made real new discoveries there.”

“Hmm. Hyperspace travel. Forging new routes with your technology.”

“Yes, if you like.”

“And I could have helped you, navigating the back ways. As we did to get here.”

“Oh, darling, it’s lovely to think about but I don’t see how…”

“It would be dangerous work. Maybe you and your team would have been allocated a young Jedi knight to guard you.”

“My love,” Hux laughed, bitter and sweet. “Do you think brave Jedi Ben Solo and civilian hyperspace engineer Dion Calland would have hit it off? Made a life together? Really?” 

“We might. If my family hadn't lied, a lot of things would have been different. So. Yes. We might have.”

“You don’t know that. It’s pure speculation.”

“Maybe.”

“And I thought Jedi weren’t allowed attachments.”

“My uncle would have changed the rules. Because of my grandfather.”

“I see.”

“I would have been so in love with you. And I wouldn’t have wasted all this time.”

Hux sighed. “It’s too much to think about. On top of everything.” He shook his head. “Thought you were supposed to be distracting me and making things seem easier. You haven’t quite done such a top line job at it, really, have you?”

“I suppose not. I’m sorry. We live with the path we have taken.” Ren stayed quiet for a little while, and seemed to go deeper into thought for some moments, his face darkening and clouding, then clearing again. “I said I’d destroyed who I was. To become stronger, you know. But now I feel stronger than ever. More ready than ever.”

“Good. I’m glad.” Hux laughed drily. “Not sure what you want me to say, actually.”

“You can’t destroy the same thing twice,” Ren said, his voice heavy with meaning and probably portent, too.

“I suppose that’s true,” Hux said, working hard to keep up. Conversing with Ren was still, even now, like playing a game of dejarik in which some of the pieces had the tendency to change rules and characteristics part way through, and in which the rule book had never been properly explained. One played largely in defensive moves and treasured the rare chances to probe or counterattack. 

“And when what isn’t destroyed is merely damaged?” Ren asked.

“Then you decide whether you do want to keep it or destroy it, and you act accordingly. You repair, or you redouble your efforts to eliminate it. You, we try to repair and look after, I believe.”

“Huh. It’s funny, really. You looking after me. I thought it would be safe to try to start a liaison with you, at first, mostly because you wouldn’t try to love me.”

“And I didn’t, then. I tried _not_ to, if anything.”

“I’m happy you failed.”

“So am I. Don’t like that word, though.”

He could feel already the start of the pain of being separated. He held Ren’s hand tight.

“What’s the time?”

“They should be here in the next ten minutes.”

“Okay.”

The sound of a door opening made Hux turn around. Their guard was greeting another man, a middle aged man dressed in a dark tweed coat with a high collar.

“Just to say a quick few words,” he was saying to the guard as they walked over to where Hux and Ren were sitting.

“I think it’s the mayor,” Hux hissed to Ren.

The man in the coat approached, and nodded to them. 

“Hello,” he said, warmly but formally. “I’m Mayor Stanten. I wanted to wish you well for your onward journey.”

Either he was an exceptional liar or he had no idea who they were.

“Thank you for letting us use your lawn,” Hux said.

“The request came, and it was all I could do to help, of course.” The mayor laughed politely. “You’re both fairly top secret, I understand. On a need to know basis.”

“Yes,” Ren said. “We are. Sorry.”

“Oh, no, no problem at all.”

The mayor might have thought that he wanted to know, but really he didn’t. Not with flower garlands still fresh on the memorial.

“I must get on,” he said, awkwardly. “Remember us to, er, those you go on to meet.”

“We will.”

He hurried back into the building.

They waited again, side by side on their bench.

And then there it was. Coming in over the mountains, descending over the lake, a big old lump of a transporter flanked by two X-wings.

They stood. Ren picked up his bag, and they walked slowly towards the shore.

The ships slowed, the X-wings hovering and the transporter slowly descending and lowering its landing gear. Landing skids touched the lawn, and a hatch opened.

“Keep ten metres back from the ship, but go!” the staffer shouted. They didn’t need telling twice. They ran to the transporter, and stopped short as bidden. The man caught them up.

Two figures descended a ramp. One, a round-faced woman, had a blaster in one hand and a small crate in the other. Both were in Resistance uniform.

“No movement from the passengers. Until we check them,” said the other officer, a non-human with thick fur on the sides of his head.

“These are the men,” the staffer said.

The two Resistance officers looked them up and down. Hux looked straight ahead, unwilling to engage in eye contact, bristling under his skin with the unreality of it all.

“Arms out.”

The male officer patted him down and handed over his blasters and blades to the woman officer, who put them in her crate. They did the same for Ren, even taking his lightsaber.

“I’d rather you didn’t, but I understand you have to,” he said.

And then, at the point of a blaster, they were hustled on board.

“By New Galactic Republic statute, and by the Resistance Code, you are prisoners of war. We are waiving the uniform requirement.”

“Uniform’s in the bag,” Hux said. “I’d wanted to have it for this eventuality. And to make a formal surrender in person, to Organa.”

Both Resistance officers laughed out loud. “You think she’s got time for that? We’ll search the bags once we’re in hyperspace.”  

Their bags were taken, and stowed out of sight. Ren called out to tell the Resistance officers to be careful. “There are valuable things in there.” Hux rolled his eyes at the thought of poor old Darth Vader’s helmet, wrapped up and wedged in its box. This was supposedly Vader getting his way. It all felt absurd.

Someone raised the ramp and closed the hatch.

“Arms in front.”

Another Resistance officer stepped forward, carrying binders. His face was familiar. The arch of his eyebrows, the determined cut of his jaw. He was a young man who, at one time, Hux had thought he was going to be very proud of. Taking in the man’s uniform and recognising the Resistance rank badge with its red symbol and edging, Hux thought that Organa was already starting to be very proud of him. Life was full of cruel irony.

“Wrists together. General,” said FN-2187.

Hux pushed his wrists closer together and nodded to the officer. “Captain,” he said. It was the done thing, to acknowledge an enemy officer’s rank.

“Sit,” the officer ordered, unmoved. 

Hux sat, on a hard jump seat with a fraying cover. FN-2187 and the furry-headed man strapped him in. Ren had already been strapped in to his seat.  There was an empty seat in between them, and the furry-headed officer sat down and tightened his buckles. The woman officer, also a captain by her rank badge, took her seat opposite, and FN-2187 headed aft towards the cockpit. 

“Get me HQ,” Hux heard him say. He tried hard to listen in to as much of what FN-2187 was saying into an old comm microphone as he could. “Identities confirmed. Clear for takeoff in the next minutes.”

FN-2187 sat opposite them, next to the woman captain. “I’m told you should brief us regarding your journey to get here.”

“We had a run in with one of the Knights of Ren and a squad of troopers. One hundred percent casualty rate on their side.”

FN-2187 nodded. “I see. I remember there being a name for people who turn and fight against First Order forces. You know that word,” he said, looking pointedly at Ren.

A voice, not human, called from the cockpit. “Hey, Finn! Clear for takeoff, confirm?”

FN-2187 got confirmation from his two comrades and answered. “Confirm, all clear,” before buckling himself into his seat.

So he had a name. Finn. One could get oneself in an awful mess, with names. 

The transporter lifted up from the ground. They climbed, fairly swiftly. There was no viewport where they were seated, so Hux could only imagine the blue, green, grey and purple of the world beneath, receding from them. He really had liked it. A sudden, chaotic honeymoon, framed and edged by conspiracy and battle and turncoat surrender. He had a sudden mad thought of regret, of a missed chance. They could have made it a real one. Making things official might have helped curry more favour with Organa. Or would it not be better to ask her permission, in the old fashioned way? That mayor could have done it. He’d have had the documentation, they could have signed it.

He was removed from his madness by the sound of incoming fire.

The ship rocked. Answering fire could be heard, from the two flanking starfighters.

“Is this old crate going to take it?” asked Ren.

“Shut up,” said FN-2187.

The woman captain stared at Ren and gathered her brows before looking away sadly. It was the same look that Taina Ahlan had given him during their stay with her. Perhaps she, too was reminded of someone she’d known.

 _Yeah, well, of course she is._ Ren’s voice came soft in his head, just behind his ear. _She’s reminded of two people. And one of them’s me._

“How soon can you get to hyperspace?” Ren asked out loud.

“When we’re clear of the planet and the drive’s warmed up,” the woman said. “Don’t tell us how to do our job.”

_They want to move before we get hit. If the drive gets hit it’s goodbye. Fuck waiting to charge, they should calculate a short hop. If I knew where we were going…_

The ship shook again and an alarm started beeping.

 _Fuck it, I’m going to try something._ And with that, Ren was suddenly absent again. 

There was a lull in the attack, seemingly, lasting about thirty seconds. The ship shuddered, from the strain of its sublight drive going flat out.

The pilot’s voice came through from the cockpit. “Almost fully clear, hitting light speed in fifteen.”

The alarm was still beeping, but a blue hyperspace indicator light lit up over the cockpit door. All three Resistance officers breathed a sigh of relief. Hux joined them. Whatever was going to happen to him when they got where they were going, it was always better to be alive now and dead later.

“How long will it be?”

“We’ll tell you when we’re nearly there. Make yourselves comfortable”

A few minutes went by. The Resistance officers exchanged a few glances and gestures.

“Now?” the round faced woman captain asked. 

“Might as well,” said the furry-headed officer.

FN-2187 nodded.

The woman loosened her belts, stood, and retrieved a datapad and stylus.

“Right,” she said. “Documentation. This is your record of prisoner of war status. This does not affect any future decision to prosecute for any breaches of the Galactic War Code.”

“Of which there are many,” FN-2187 said, quietly.

“Read, enter your rank, name, and number, and sign. It doesn’t have to be your best signature, I’m not taking the binders off.”

Hux read through the declaration. It was accurate. He tapped on the data boxes at the bottom of the form, entered _GENERAL_ for rank, tapped and entered _DION BRENDOL MAURITZ HUX_ for name, and _01.000.183_ for number,  before signing a terribly untidy _Dion Hux_ in another box, his writing hand bound twistedly to his other hand. He handed form and stylus back to the captain. She tapped through, presumably to close and save the form, and handed the datapad to Ren. Hux wondered whether he was entering _KYLO REN_ or _BEN ORGANA SOLO_ and whatever curious phalanx of middle names he had secretly lurking in there. He wasn’t officially part of the First Order rank system, so hopefully he’d have the presence of mind to put _Knight Commander_ seeing as everyone had acted as if that was his official rank — since the very first time Hux had half-jokingly referred to him by that phrase at a meeting of High Command, as it happened. Hux rolled his eyes at himself. Ben Solo could probably write in _Mama’s Dearest Boy_ , or _Vader’s Chosen One_ under rank and it wouldn’t make much difference.

The woman captain took the datapad back from Ren, and secured it.

“Look, it’ll be a few hours, I can tell you that much. Sit back and relax, I would. We aren’t going to be making conversation with you.”

Hux sat back in his seat, binder-crossed wrists in his lap. After a little while, he tried reaching out for Ren, although he wasn’t sure how it was done. 

_Ren? You there? Ben? Darling?_

There was no answer. He heard a rough snore. Ren was sleeping. Well then. Hux closed his eyes and started to decide whether to sleep, or merely to feign it. Soon, mere physiological and psychological realities made the decision for him.


End file.
